Nothing Without This Suit
by TheCosmicBanana
Summary: One two-minute phone call and spoken instructions from Tony is all it takes for Peter to walk into a trap. Blindly, cheerfully, like a puppy without a leash. And while Tony should probably feel flattered, he can't help but wish the kid had a better sense of danger. Peter may not know it yet, but both their lives are hanging in the balance.
1. Thursday Night

**1**

 **THURSDAY**

"Happy, I'm not kidding," Tony said into the iPad, raising both eyebrows. "Take the night. I'll be fine, and you need it."

The man on Tony's screen looked unconvinced. "It's not _my_ night I'm worried about, Tony. What I don't like is the idea of you, alone in that tower, surrounded by zero security –"

"Happy." With one hand, Tony took his sunglasses off and gave the iPad a strong stare. "For the first time in eight years, I have the Tower completely, utterly, all to myself. I'm going to _celebrate_."

Happy let out a long breath, but finally nodded, resigning. From the wall and couch behind him, it appeared the man was sitting in a living room, though he still wore a suit and tie.

Dressed slightly more casually in a shiny graphic tee and suit jacket, Tony was in the backseat of a sleek white car, going back to the Tower from a science meet in the city. Happy had been trying to call the whole night, and on the drive back Tony had finally accepted the call just to put his head of security's mind at rest.

"I have contacts near you," Happy was saying. "They're all in the city tonight. If you just want someone to be at the front door, make sure nothing gets in or out, I can call and they can be there. . . ."

Tony glanced out the car window, tuning out. The car had turned, and the yellowish light from streetlights outside had transitioned to a cool LED-blue as they pulled around the Tower and into its internal garage.

Damn. Happy's call had lasted the whole drive.

"Go play pool," Tony instructed, folding his sunglasses and tucking them into the breast pocket of his jacket, "take off that tie, knock back a few. Party hard. Sleep well. See you next week, all right?"

"I don't – I don't play pool –" Happy started to say, but Tony talked over him, louder, "Wednesday, okay? Wednesday. Good." He disconnected the call and turned off the iPad.

Opening the car door, Tony let himself out into the garage. Before closing the door, he stuck his head back inside the car and flashed a bright, false smile at the driver's seat. "Hi – if it's all the same to you, I would prefer if that information stayed quiet. Avengers Tower –" He shrugged one shoulder. " _Kinda_ prefer that nobody knows it's unoccupied."

There was no one in the driver's seat. A smiley-face had been taped onto the steering wheel, but that was it.

Tony gave a short smile. "Our little secret. Great." He slammed the car door shut.

"Self-driving vehicle test. . . check," he muttered to no one in particular, striding toward the door that led into the Tower. Pepper would be happy about the successful run – she had been bothering him for weeks to test one of Audi's self-driving car line, after they had donated a significant sum toward the company's automated vehicles.

Of course, she wouldn't be happy to know that he conducted the practice run by himself. From the backseat. While on the phone.

Didn't matter. All Pepper had to know was that the car didn't crash and that it ended up where it was supposed to be.

There was a set of automatic doors at one end of the garage, leading directly into the Tower, and Tony took in a deep breath as they swept open.

Enough business. With the tower empty, it was time for some fun.

The Tower was dark when he stepped inside, but sensory triggers began turning on lights the more he walked into rooms.

A kitchenette-hallway area lit up as he strode in. Grabbing some grapes from a decorative bowl sitting on the counter, Tony popped them in his mouth and reached for a pen holder perched on the edge of a counter. He took a pen, clicked it on, and immediately drew a quick sketch in the palm of his hand, ignoring the pad of paper sitting next to the cup. Staring at the smudgy ink, he sniffed thoughtfully and leaned back.

This new idea might actually work.

Tony strode over to the elevator and thumbed the button for the top floor. The doors immediately _dinged_ and shuddered open, and he stepped inside.

"Hey, JARVIS," Tony said as the doors slid closed, staring intently at the smudged pen on his hand. "Run specs on Cap's shield. The new prototype we're working on. I want the ratios of flexibility to strength."

The elevator started purring up to the top floor. Tony waited, but there was no response. Frowning, he lowered his hand and looked up. "J?" he said into the empty elevator. "Hey. You with me, buddy?"

After a moment of silence, the AI spoke.

"Good morning, sir," JARVIS gently chimed.

Tony frowned and swiveled a watch on his wrist. "You in Australia, JARVIS? It's eleven at night."

" _Terrrr_ –" The voice trailed off in a deep, throaty rumble, then slowly brightened back to JARVIS' normal pitch. "Terribly sorry, sir. My programming must be faul– faulty – +tTtm:{voice:}/command/ERROR –" JARVIS' voice suddenly blurred and squealed into a digital static.

"Augh!" Tony winced at the sound, bringing both hands up to his ears.

The elevator juddered slightly in its track and stopped completely. Tony swayed on his feet, grabbing the wall for balance. The light at the top flickered.

"Time – time+1000110+errr/{day}morning–" the AI was stuttering. The high-pitched electrical whine continued to screech in the background.

"Hey. _Hey_!" Tony yelled, keeping both hands clamped over his ears. "JARVIS, what's going on?"

"Sssksss-sorry, sir," JARVIS said, his voice seeming to come through thick static. The AI sounded pained. "I have located a virus within my system."

Tony shook his head, trying to clear it of the high-pitched electronic whine. "So zap it. Firecracker Protocol, let's go. I didn't give you the best anti-viral systems for nothing, J."

"I would, sir, but I have already tried that. All anti-virus systems are online, but nothing appears to be working."

Tony frowned. "I coded those programs myself. An outside hacker shouldn't be able to get so far as the Wi-Fi password."

"Indeed, not an outside hacker, but this was a manual plug-in virus."

Tony's spine stiffened with alarm. "Someone's _here_?"

"They were able to bypass all my security, sir. They are on Floor 41."

"That's great. You know what, that's _actually_ great, because that's the security floor," Tony said in frustration. Turning to the touch screen in the wall below the elevator buttons, he woke up the display and tapped in an entry code. When the computer allowed him in, he immediately started typing, skimming through the safety protocols.

"Sir?" JARVIS spoke up. "All my readings of the internal workings of the tower are being scrambled. Did you just summon a Mark 45 wrist blaster?"

"No, that one's still in testing." Tony suddenly frowned and spoke slowly. "Why –?"

The elevator doors exploded inwards. Tony cried out and slammed himself sideways into the wall, both hands reaching up to protect his head.

Something shattered behind him. Tony turned his head around just in time to see a wrist blaster open its fingers and fire a blast from its palm.

The bolt of energy hit the elevator control panel, mere inches away from his head. The console of buttons exploded, throwing sparks and loose wires.

"Augh!" Tony ducked out of the way.

Spinning around, he flattened himself to the other wall of the elevator to face his attacker. The wrist blaster was hovering midair, thanks to some additional rockets built into the underside of the wrist. Tony had added them as a convenience measure more than anything else, so that when he summoned the multiple-piece suit, the wrist blasters wouldn't have to snap so forcefully onto his arm and bruise it.

So much for convenience now. Tony eyed it carefully. Obviously it was being controlled by someone else, hiding in some other place of the tower.

"J," he spoke slowly, softly, "can you send _me_ anything? Mark, uh. . . ." He closed his eyes briefly and shook his head, trying to think. "Mark 52."

"I'm afraid I do not have access, sir."

"Yeah, of course not," Tony muttered, keeping his eyes on the hovering blaster.

He darted forward and tried to grab the blaster, but it swerved out of the way and fired another blast. Tony didn't even really have to duck to avoid it, and he heard the energy smash into what remained of the elevator doors behind him.

A quick glance behind Tony told him that the blast had only hit the upper corner of the elevator door – way off target. He turned to the wrist blaster with an indignant look on his face. " _Come_ on!" he snapped, more annoyed than anything else. "Your aiming system is better than _that_."

JARVIS's voice interrupted him. "Sir, the structural integrity of that door has been compromised –"

Behind him, Tony heard something groan. He whirled around just in time to see the remaining half of the elevator door coming down on him.

The wall of metal hit him like an oncoming train, and Tony's world went black.


	2. The Security Floor

**2**

Pulses of pain pulled Tony back into consciousness. When he opened his eyes, though, he considered just going back to sleep.

He was sprawled out on the elevator floor, with the door pinning him to the ground. Pulses of pain throbbed through his right leg and shoulder, telling him exactly where the metal had him pinned. Dust hung in the air like smoke.

Tony heaved a cough out of his bruised lungs and grimaced silently. It hurt to breathe out and it hurt even more to breathe in. Looking up, squinting through the haze of rubbly dust, he could see the softly glowing blue palm of the gauntlet. It felt like it was staring at him.

Tony clenched his jaw. Keeping his eyes trained on the light, he reached around on the floor for something to grab onto.

His hand brushed over a piece of rough rebar, and to his surprise, the metal rod rolled a little under his touch. Flicking a glance down at it, he saw one jagged tip was glowing hot orange, and the other end was free. It had been broken away from the concrete by the blasts, forming a fairly versatile, two-foot-long weapon. Tony slowly curled his fingers around it.

The hovering wrist blaster made another small whirring sound, and he saw the blue light start to intensify.

Before the blaster could fire its final shot, Tony brought the piece of rebar over his chest and swung.

It was a direct hit – the rebar connected with the hand piece with a metallic _crack_. Releasing a high-pitched squeal, the small piece of armor went flying, and it smashed heavily into the wall of the elevator.

Panting, Tony let his weapon fall from his hands.

"Sir," came JARVIS' voice, "I must shut down all power immediately."

"No," Tony wheezed, trying to pick himself up from the floor. "No, no, I still need you, buddy."

"They have breached nearly all security, sir. The longer I remain online, the hackers have access to any system in the Tower."

Tony shook his head, trying to tune it out. He had to move. With his one free arm, he tried pushing the door straight up, off of his right shoulder, but he realized quickly there was no way he could move it on his own. Not only was the metal door pinning him to the floor, there was also concrete wedged on all sides of him like walls.

Leverage. He needed some kind of leverage.

"I am programmed to serve and protect you, and as I have violated those objectives I am now only endangering you. Initiating system shutdown."

Panting desperately, Tony stopped his efforts at trying to move. "J, wait –!"

The lights snapped off, plunging everything into blackness. Tony's head jerked up.

It wasn't just the elevator – all of Avengers Tower was dark.

The elevator felt like a prison cell.

And JARVIS was gone.

Unexpectedly, the metal door shifted, and weight pressed heavily onto Tony's upper arm. He shouted in pain, grabbing uselessly at his shoulder with his one free arm. In the silence, he tried to catch his breath and think.

"Okay. Okay." He cautiously reached his free hand out into the darkness and groped around until his fingers closed on something cold and smooth – the wrist blaster that had just been trying to kill him. The gauntlet gave a slight twitch, as if it were alive, but made no other move.

Prying off a panel on the back of the wrist, Tony uncovered a set of softly glowing switches. All of them were switched off except one that read 'Automatic'. He switched it off, and the armor fell totally limp in his hand. He instead flicked the switch labeled 'Manual'.

The hand piece perked up again. A distinct whirring sound came from its core as it opened up like a hinged box. Tony fitted it to his wrist, and the armor immediately clicked over his hand, giving a positive whirring sound.

"Okay." Tony flexed his fingers, charged up the blaster, and aimed his hand at the rubble pinning him to the floor. "Time to go."

* * *

Tony ascended the stairs as quietly as he could, though he was pretty sure silence didn't matter at this point. The wrist armor was still on his left hand, but he held a gun in his right – courtesy of a 'safe box' hidden inside a bookshelf on floor 39.

Ironically, it was a good thing the security floor was at the middle point of the Tower. Tony's elevator had stopped at floor 35, and security was only six levels up.

Tony walked with a limp – the concrete pinning his right side to the floor had done more damage than he originally thought. He wasn't sure if his ankle was merely twisted, or if some muscle had actually snapped.

Regardless, every step was painful. Tony grit his teeth as he lurched himself up another step, feeling faint pulses of pain from his ankle.

Thank God somebody had had the oversight to store painkillers in that safe box as well.

The number 41 painted on the wall greeted Tony as he reached the top of the staircase. "Hello, security floor," Tony muttered to the door. He raised his eyebrows. "For the record, you are absolutely _terrible_ at your job."

Because floor 41 was the security floor, its door had a coded lock in place of a handle. Tony tapped a five-digit code into the keypad, and the door unlatched with a heavy clicking sound.

"Tally ho." Tony swung the door open.

Floor 41 didn't have any windows – there was a circular hallway of windows that acted as a façade for the outside, but for security reasons the floor's main area of operations was set inside an inner core of concrete walls.

So with the blackout, it _should have_ been pitch-black.

Should have been.

There was one bright light slicing through the darkness. Setting his jaw, Tony walked toward it.

As he got closer, he realized the light was coming from a computer monitor. And there was a silhouette of a head in front of it.

The head moved. "Mister Anthony Edward Stark," drawled an unfamiliar voice. "So good to meet again."

* * *

 _A/N: Wow, thank you all so much for the favorites, follows, and reviews! You guys are awesome! :D_


	3. Anillo de Anillo

**3**

 **FRIDAY**

It had been a crappy day for Peter Parker.

Really _,_ _really_ crappy.

He had failed a Spanish test (stupid verb tenses), completely missed lunch due to a frantic last-minute throw-together of a science project (thank goodness for Ned's help on that one – Peter could have sworn it wasn't due until next week), he had only gotten three hours of sleep last night due to a late Spider-Man patrol (stupid drunk drivers).

And, to top it all off, his entire chest and torso were covered in purplish-black bruises as the result of a sloppy rescue last night.

Peter really didn't need a mental replay of how the rescue had gone, so he tried not to think about it. He had learned an important lesson, and that was that stopping a moving car _by_ getting hit by it was a stupid idea. One of his stupider ones, in fact. His healing ability might be able to take it, but both his pride and stomach could not.

All Peter wanted to do was blast his music into his ears, lie down on his bed, and sleep until he was hungry.

Well, at least until he was more hungry than tired.

So far he had managed to accomplish one of those three things – as he stepped off a crosswalk and continued home, a new song started on his playlist. With both earbuds firmly in his ears, the stress of school was finally starting to ebb away from his mind.

Suddenly, the song faded out into silence without warning, and Peter frowned and looked down at the device in his hand. _What just happened –?_

He gave a little jump as the music in his ears was replaced by a shrill ringing. The black screen lit up with a name and number.

 _Right, iPhone._

He really wasn't used to having such new tech. For the longest time, he had just used an old flip phone that he had found in a consignment shop. With a little technical rigging, he was able to hook it up to some newer earbuds to play music. But ever since the 'internship' with Tony Stark, he received only the best of the best of what technology was willing to offer.

He brightened when he saw who the caller was. Quickly, he tapped the green accept call circle and brought the phone up to his ear.

"Mister Stark!" Peter said happily.

"Yeah, that's usually who it is on the other end when your phone says my name." That was definitely Tony. "Where you heading?"

"Uh, just home. School's out." Peter glanced around the street. The streets were busy, crowded with people, but nobody was paying much attention to him.

"I can see that. What street?"

"Oh –" Peter turned around to look at the street sign but stopped. "Wait, what do you mean, you can see?" he asked.

"Hm. Pretty long for a street name."

Peter hesitated. "Mister Stark?" he said uncertainly.

He heard the man suck in a breath. "I have a. . . little side-quest for you."

Peter perked up instantly. "Another mission? What, right now?"

"No, no, no, I said _side-quest_. I'll tell you where you need to go, and you'll go there."

Peter blinked. "Okay. So. . . ."

"So," Tony echoed, "where you are right now? Keep going. Straight along that street until you pass the red building."

Peter glanced around the street, then turned his back a little so he was facing the buildings. "Mister Stark, is. . . is something _happening_?" he said quietly into the phone. "I'm not being – you know, followed or anything?"

"What?" It sounded like that was the last thing on Tony's mind. "Followed, no. Absolutely not."

"No," Peter repeated quietly in relief, straightening up.

"If you were being followed, I would tell you. In some form I would tell you. Code word, something like that."

"Code word, yeah. Yeah." Peter gave a little nod to himself.

"So we're all good? Good. Now remember, keep walking. Straight ahead."

"Okay." Peter glanced around one more time, then started walking. "Where am I going?"

"Red building. Am I repeating myself? Feels like I'm repeating myself."

"No – you know what I mean." Peter glanced sideways at the road. He felt oddly conspicuous.

"If I told you, it wouldn't be a surprise."

"I mean." Peter paused. "I just want to know how long this 'side-quest' is gonna take, you know? I told May I'd be back, and – you know her. She freaks if I'm back late."

After a moment of crackly silence, Tony cleared his throat. "I'll call her. The, uh, internship might require you to stay a little later tonight. Don't worry about it." Louder, he said, "Left here – there should be an alleyway."

Peter hadn't even noticed he had passed the red-bricked building. He quickly glanced around to see if anyone was watching him and ducked down into the long alley.

It was darker here than out on the street, given that the two large buildings shadowed it from either side. Peter allowed his pupils to dilate in the darkness and blinked. It was a long alleyway, completely dark at the end, and narrow.

Tony's voice crackled in his ear. "Good job so far, kid. Now go behind that dumpster."

Peter's eyebrows furrowed. "Why are you taking me to a dumpster?"

"Could you just –?" Tony sighed in frustration.

"Yeah, yeah, sure. Sorry."

As Peter walked forward, he heard Tony take a deep, patient breath. "There's another alleyway behind it. Just go around it, to the left, aaand – there you go."

Peter obeyed, and as he came around the corner, his jaw dropped. "No way."

"Hey, kid, don't spaz out on me yet –"

"No _way_!" Peter repeated, cutting Tony off. "You built me my own Iron Man suit?"

At the end of the short alleyway stood the legendary metal suit of armor. It stood tall, around six feet at least, and gleamed a beautiful crimson in the afternoon sun. The golden faceplate was angled slightly towards the ground, both eyes a cool dark grey. Peter ran toward it, excitement building in his chest.

Tony sighed. "Don't say I didn't warn you. The suit's not for you."

"But –" Peter checked the eyes again. They were dark. "No one's in it, right?"

"Yes. . . no. It's here for you, _yes_ , to pick you up, but _no_ , it hasn't been form-fitted for you and built for you to use on a regular basis –"

"Pick me up?" Peter repeated, picking up on the first part of the sentence. "Where am I going?" He stood on tiptoe to get eye-to eye with the gleaming faceplate, marveling at his curved reflection.

"I'll have you know that this is just an emergency situation, a code-red kind of thing, and – hey hey, mind the paint job, okay? I don't need fingerprints all over the faceplate."

Peter instantly snapped his hand away and frowned. "So you _can_ see me. Where's the camera?" He leaned forward to peer into the eyes. "Is it in the suit?"

"Why not take a look for yourself?"

The suit made several whirring noises, and the entire body piece split open. The head, chest, arms, and legs lifted up in separate sections, displaying a human-sized vacancy ready to be stepped into.

"Whooa, hey. _Hey_." Peter's initial surprise turned very quickly into an interested awe.

"Hop in. I'll show you all the bells and whistles, pull out all the stops. You won't be needing that phone, by the way," Tony added as an afterthought. "I'm already connected to the inside of the suit."

"Right, yeah. Uh, bye." Still somewhat mesmerized, Peter pulled the phone away from his face and took the earbuds out of his ears. " _Nice_!" he whispered to himself, unable to take his eyes off the suit.

Stepping up to the armor, he turned around and carefully moved his heels back into the feet plates. As he leaned back, pressing his spine to the back of the metal suit, the armor suddenly seemed to swallow him. The chest piece closed over his upper half in several layers, metal pieces swinging down over his head and latching tightly onto his shoulders, while the rest tightened onto his ribcage and abdomen. Plates of metal closed over both his arms, and the fine finger pieces clicked securely onto his own fingers like thick gloves.

Peter tried not to flinch away as metal wrapped around the back of his head and throat. The chin piece swung around, connecting to his jaw, and the faceplate closed over his face.

He blinked in the sudden dark that the faceplate created, then squinted as the holographic screen in front of his eyes suddenly came to life.

The whole process took all of a few seconds – five at most.

"Ow," he grunted as the armor finished tightening around his limbs and stomach. "It's a little constricting."

"Constricting?" Tony's voice suddenly came crystal-clear into Peter's ears, coming through the Iron Man's sound system. "I believe the word you're looking for is _empowering_. Come on, you've gotta feel pretty good."

"Nah, it's actually a little hard to move." Peter tried shifting his feet, rotating his arms, bending his knees. He _could_ move, but this suit's range of mobility was nothing compared to the soft fabric of his own.

"Well, maybe that's because the suit was made for a five-eight adult, not a five-nothing teenager. Measurements have to be exact to be comfortable."

"Woah, wait," Peter protested, " _I'm_ five-eight."

Two cold circles suddenly pressed onto the insides of Peter's wrists. He gasped in surprise and tried to pull away, but the armor only moved with him. The cold spots stayed on his wrists. "What was that?" he said in a panicky voice.

"What was what? Your vitals?"

New holograms swept into Peter's field of view. A rectangle in the corner showed a thin red line, and as the teenager watched, it started moving up and down in jagged peaks – it was just his heartbeat.

"Oh." His shoulders relaxed a little. "Right."

"Looks like even the amazing Spider-Man gets a little scared too. Look at his little heart go." In a high-pitched voice, Tony mimicked the speed of the heart rate. " _Beep-beep-beep_."

"You can see that?" Peter's gaze darted over the holographic screen in front of him.

"I can see everything you can." Tony stopped abruptly, and when he spoke again, his voice had a sharper, parental edge. "So what is _that_?"

Peter stifled a groan as he realized the suit had picked up on his injury from last night. A small silhouette of the suit was in the corner of his screen, and in flashing red it highlighted his chest and abdomen area. MULTIPLE BRUISES DETECTED, read a text box over the image. "It's nothing, just a –"

"Oh, it's just nothing?" Tony interrupted. "Okay. Great. Then you won't mind explaining to me how 'nothing' happened."

"Just a sloppy rescue yesterday," Peter finished quickly. "I was trying to stop a drunk driver. It's fine."

"You got hit by a car." Tony's inflection was a perfect balance between a question and a statement.

"Well, not on _purpose_ , you know, but it was the first thing I could –"

"That is –" Tony broke off and gave a short, frustrated kind of sigh. "Kid, that is the _opposite_ of the right way to stop a drunk driver."

"I know, I know," Peter mumbled, "but I heal fast anyway, and as soon as I can get some sleep –"

"Look, just don't let it happen again, all right? Pepper has been worrying about you again and if she has any grounds for it, she'll never let _me_ let _you_ use the suit again. Yours, I mean. This one is just temporary." Tony paused. "So no secrets with this one, okay? Everything you see on that screen is being projected straight to me."

Desperate to change the subject, Peter pounced on Tony's last sentence. "Where are you, anyway? If you wanted me at the Tower, I know the way. I can get there easy."

" _Well_ ," Tony said dramatically, and sniffed once. "Thought you might want to arrive in style for once."

"Hey, don't bash the Spidey suit," Peter said defensively. "You designed most of it, you know."

"If by 'most' you mean 'all'. . . yes. But, we're on a time crunch right now. Couldn't wait for you to go all the way home and change."

"All right, all right, I'll get there." Peter flexed his fingers and rotated his wrists. "So how do I fly this thing? Are the flight controls voice activated? Touch activated? Will the suit just pick up my brain waves. . . ?"

From the other end, Tony gave a dry chuckle. "You're not flying my suit."

"Aw, what? Come on, this is my one chance in an Iron Man suit."

"No, _no_ chance. I've given you access to basic ground movements – I can override those too, actually – but none of the _real_ fun stuff. That will be all me. For example."

Peter gave a surprised gasp as his right wrist was suddenly thrust up into the air. As he watched, two thick plates of the armor on his forearm slid open, revealing a slim pocket. A dozen small missiles, no thicker than pencils, unfolded from the tiny space. Their red tips started to glow. Peter's screen switched to some form of battle mode as dozens of small red crosshairs darted across his field of vision, aiming for targets.

"Woah." Peter automatically took a step back, even though the rockets were attached to him. Seeing such an arsenal strapped to his wrist _was_ kind of cool, but it was unsettling to know the damage they could cause. "Okay. Deactivate."

"Not voice controlled," Tony reminded him, but the tiny missiles tucked away into the arm again.

"JARVIS usually is." Peter frowned. "Hey, isn't JARVIS a part of the suit? I thought he was automatically built in."

Silence crackled on the other end for a moment. The spidey-sense buzzed a little in Peter's head. "Mister Stark?"

"Yeah, JARVIS – uh, he's just taking a breather, that's all. Look, today, I'm your co-pilot, alright? Well, I'm your only pilot. I'm _the_ pilot."

"Okay, okay. Enough introductions. Can we fly now?"

Peter could swear he heard Tony chuckle again, just softly. "Hold tight."

Peter's wrists were thrust to his sides, his hands raised so his palms were parallel to the floor. His heart started beating faster again, but he didn't care.

Fire blasted from his palms and heels, and Peter felt his weight lift dizzyingly off the ground. He stayed in a hover only about a foot off the ground.

"Is this as high as it can g–"

Peter never got to finish his question, as the suit suddenly made a loud whirring noise. The blasters on his hands and feet jumped to a higher setting, and he shot straight up into the air.

In the few seconds it took to rise, a thousand thoughts pumped through his mind. He couldn't even see the tall buildings surrounding him anymore – not even in peripheral vision – he couldn't breathe for a few seconds – his head felt light and dizzy – _he was hundreds of feet above the ground_.

"Woah!" he cried, laughing hysterically.

"Stop – stop squirming so much –" Tony grunted from the other end, and the suit swerved a little. "Throwing off the calibration –"

"Woo-hoo!" Peter threw his neck back, feeling the thrill of adrenaline pump through his veins. This was nothing like swinging from webs from building to building, but it was just as exhilarating.

The blasters faded as Peter reached the peak of the takeoff, and he started to fall back to earth again. The suit took over into a sort of flight mode, flipping Peter right-side up and pulling his hands to his sides. He could feel blasters pushing him forward from his heels, calves, and palms.

As the suit swooped over the tops of buildings, Peter marveled at how smooth the ride was. He didn't know exactly what he had been expecting from a ride in an Iron Man suit, but this was much better than anything he would have imagined.

"Now remember," came Tony's voice, "this is a multi-million dollar suit, so we're not going to do anything crazy, nothing that could potentially –"

"Hey, can you do a spin?" Peter asked excitedly, accidentally cutting off the voice on the other end.

"Damn right it can do a spin!"

" _Whooo-hooo_!" Peter whooped as the suit swirled him fully around until he was on his back. He felt two blasters on his shoulder blades come to life, as well as a third in the small of his back, to hold him aloft.

His enthusiasm seemed to be rubbing off on Tony, even if just a little bit. He could hear Tony chuckling from the other end.

After a moment, the suit whipped back around so Peter was flying on his stomach again. He was laughing, trying to get his breath back. As he calmed down he started actually taking in his current surroundings. Slowly his smile dropped to a frown.

"Uh, Mister Stark?" Peter said uncertainly. "This isn't the way to the tower."

"Backseat driver," Tony muttered.

"No, well, it's just – I know the rooftops." Peter nodded his head to the right. "The tower's that way. The quickest route, at least."

"Well. . . ." Tony trailed off. "Today we're taking a quick detour."

Peter didn't respond. The spidey-sense buzzed in his head again.

* * *

 _A/N: Thanks for reading! I'm glad you guys are all liking the story as much as I'm enjoying writing it. :D I wanted to address one slight continuity error in this story, which is the inclusion of JARVIS as Tony's AI. Technically, by the time Peter comes into the Avengers picture, JARVIS has 'become' Vision and really shouldn't exist anymore, but I really wanted JARVIS to feature in this story. I hope you all can overlook the slight break from canon. :P_


	4. King

**4**

 **16 HOURS EARLIER**

 **THURSDAY**

Tony squinted into the darkness. "Sorry, do I know you?"

"I know _you_." The man spoke in a gravelly American accent. "Fortunately, you don't know me nearly as well."

"You said we've met?" Tony stepped sideways, his hand still gripping tightly to the gun. He was slowly moving in a wide circle, trying to see the head in front of the computer monitor from a different angle.

The man chuckled. "Like you'd remember that."

"Try me." Tony narrowed his eyes in the dark. With the sharp contrast of light between the shadowed silhouette and the bright computer screen, it was hard to make out any facial details.

"My name's Jason King. We met five years ago."

"Trip down memory lane, okay. Let's see. . . 2012?" Tony thought for a minute. "You know what, you're right. No idea. Let's see, I'm guessing you're a. . . hacker?"

The man snorted and gestured around to the darkened Avengers Tower. "Good guess."

"It's a gift." Tony tilted his head up, indicating the person sitting in front of him. "So how'd you get into my tower?"

King spread his hands. "It's a gift," he repeated mockingly.

Tony smiled politely through gritted teeth and silently gauged the best way to get some real answers. He tried another angle. "Nothing too difficult for HYDRA, I suppose."

His goad had the desired effect. The man's entire demeanor changed as he stiffened in his seat. "We're not HYDRA."

"Some ghost-zombie division of SHIELD, then?" Tony guessed. "Rising up through the ashes of the tragically fallen empire? Fury's gonna burst out of a coat closet any second now, I know it," he muttered to himself, glancing around.

King stood sharply, both fists pounding heavily on the desk in front of him. "We _were_ SHIELD," he growled. "Before HYDRA cracked us in half." He took a breath and straightened up. "We were one of Fury's secret weapons. One of his many, I should say, secret weapons.

"We were called Fury's Circuit. There were eight of us – eight of the best hackers on the globe. We could have jacked into news stations, we could have cracked open the Internet – hell, we could have torn down White House with a few keystrokes, had we been given the order."

" _Definitely_ sounds like you're the good guys so far." Tony moved forward another step, carefully navigating around the table.

King cut himself off. "Trying to get a profile, Stark?"

" _God_ no," Tony responded dramatically. "Then I would know the face of the criminal I'm going to put in jail for breaking and entering my tower."

"Actually, it's not a bad idea at all. I think I'd like you to know who bested you."

Hot white lights suddenly snapped on all around the room. Two bright lamps had been aimed directly at Tony's eyes, and he flinched away with a startled cry. He shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to get rid of the large purple blots swarming at the center of his vision.

Tony could hear King moving around to the front of the desk, and footsteps walking up to him. Blinking rapidly, he tried to look up at King's face. "Always love putting a face to the v–"

Boots kicked the backs of Tony's knees, and he fell forward onto the floor. Shock jarred up his spine. "Gah!" he gasped, surprised more than anything else.

The gun in his hand was yanked out of his grip, and both arms were twisted behind his back. Two men stood behind him.

"Okay. Wasn't expecting that," Tony grunted honestly, grimacing in pain. At least his vision had returned to normal. He looked up, and his eyes met King's.

The man stood taller than Tony – not a a surprise, really – and wore what looked like SHIELD gear. He had a narrow face, intense white-blue eyes, and a scar running along his jaw. His hair had been buzzed off, leaving behind only the faintest shadow of grey hair.

"Funny, how you heroes are always shorter in person," King smirked.

A corner of Tony's lip twitched in irritation and he didn't reply.

"Stand him up," King ordered.

The two men hoisted Tony up, and he scrambled to get his footing. Pain shot up from his twisted ankle, and he sucked in a breath.

"Gotta say, that was well done," Tony admitted when he got his breath back. "Nice little maneuver there. Good job, fellas," he complimented the two men behind him. He turned back to King. "But when did a group of _computer_ hackers become full-fledged field agents?"

King's face darkened, his voice lowering. "When HYDRA reduced SHIELD to rubble."

Tony audibly sighed. "Alright. Spill."

"When Widow released those files to the world, all of SHIELD's dirty little secrets came to light that day. And the Circuit? Well, we had this sick curiosity. Like we had to know how bad things could have been. So we got to work. Few people knew how to really destroy a SHIELD file's firewall like we did. We started hacking, decoding, decrypting, deciphering. We started reading everything we never knew." King looked up and met Tony's eyes, and his irises blazed blue. "Didn't like what we saw."

"Let me guess," Tony said. "HYDRA had gotten their fingers into more than a few pies?"

"They were like a virus," King said hollowly. "They were everywhere. There wasn't a single division within SHIELD that hadn't been infected. Mass murderers were heads of departments. HYDRA assassins had given us orders to kill – for all we knew, the deaths they ordered us to cause we caused were just collateral damage. The more we decrypted, the more our faith in SHIELD crumbled to _nothing_."

"Moving story," Tony said after a moment. "Really. I'm touched. So, let me fill in the blanks, here – you all jumped ship, moved back to your parents' basements, reconsidered some things, and then bided your time until you had the _perfect_ opportunity to ruin my evening?"

King didn't rise to the bait. Instead of replying, he gave Tony a calm smile. "We decided to fly under a different flag." He unpinned a badge from his chest and held it out to Tony. "The Hacker's Enforcement of Law."

The emblem was similar to the original SHIELD logo, but the eagle's beak was turned the wrong way, and instead of solid outlines there was only a skeleton and skull against a background of black. The words _Hackers' Enforcement of Law_ circled around the top half of the badge.

"HEL," Tony said, reading the acronym imprinted along the lower half of the badge. "Catchy. I _think_ , though, and correct me if I'm wrong, you're missing another L there?"

The man chuckled deeply as he drew the badge back and pinned it back to his chest, just above his heart. In a low tone he spoke to the two men behind Tony. "Get his gun, let him go."

The hands gripping Tony's arms released, and he took a step forward. Rubbing his wrists, Tony looked back at King.

King glanced backward at Tony as he walked back to the table. "You're just like I thought you'd be, Stark."

"Always happy to live up to expectations," Tony smiled back, mock-politely.

"I will say one thing, though," King added, almost as an afterthought. "Your security wasn't even close to what we had expected."

 _Okay, okay, so maybe you were right just this once, Happy. I can hear the 'I told you so' already._ Tony's lip twitched in irritation. "We were. . . unforeseeably understaffed," he muttered.

"'Understaffed'?" King repeated with a snort. "That's an understatement. There wasn't a single soul in the building when we came in – except, of course, for your AI."

"Which brings me to my point, thank you–" Tony jutted his chin at King – "you killed JARVIS. I'm gonna kick your ass."

"That's the name of your Artificial Intelligence interface?" The man gave a nod of admiration. "That's a nice piece of tech, Stark. _Real_ nice. I'm impressed."

"Ah," Tony said, raising his eyebrows, "so you want my tech." He tilted his head to one side in a nod. "Okay, fair enough. Tell you what, though? Do yourself a favor, next time just burgle what you want and don't bother actually meeting face-to-face. I mean, clearly security isn't an issue for you."

King smirked. "Damn right," he said. "But I have my team here for something greater than common theft. We don't want your tech – we want one of your toys."

Tony gave a deep, tired sigh and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "Look, if you're gonna start speaking in riddles, I'm just going to go back downstairs and get a drink –"

"I don't want your tech, Stark," the man repeated, leaning forward, "because right now I need one of your toys." He placed a folder on the table and slid it forward, open-faced. Tony slowly took a step forward and glanced at the folder.

His muscles seized as he saw the photographs.

They were all of Peter.

King gave Tony a smile. "It's all gonna be very simple, Stark," he said. "All you gotta do is bring him to me."

* * *

 _A/N: WE'VE HIT A THOUSAND VIEWS! Holy cow, you guys are amazing. :D Thanks again for the reviews, follows, and favorites! Each one makes me ridiculously happy. :3 And I have good news – the next chapter will be posted on Monday! See you then!_


	5. Joyride

**5**

 **FRIDAY**

Peter's voice now crackled in Tony's ear. "The tower's that way. The quickest route, at least."

"Well. . . ." Tony licked his lips. "Today, we're taking a quick detour."

He should have known that Peter would know his way around the rooftops.

A small MUTE symbol appeared on the screen in front of Tony. He stared blankly at the wall-sized screen in front of him for a moment, watching the aerial view of New York whiz by beneath the flying Iron Man suit.

"Don't test my patience, Stark," said a calm voice from behind him.

Tony grit his teeth and glanced over at King. The ex-SHIELD agent stood leaning up against the wall, both arms crossed over his chest.

Tony stood on a small platform in the center of a circular room. A wall-sized screen stretched over the wall in front of him, and at the top were the words _Mirror Protocol Ver 6._ The screen showed an aerial view of New York, which was coming from a live feed straight from the visor of the suit Peter was in.

Since Tony was piloting the suit, he wore the core basics of what drove it; an X-shaped piece of armor over his chest, slim metal gauntlets on his wrists, boot-like leg pieces, and a visor around his head. The visor displayed a holographic screen in front of Tony's eyes, mimicking the same readout as the real suit.

Each piece hummed slightly with a tiny blue light. With each piece connected wirelessly to the transmitter on the other side of the room, there was no need for wires connecting the pieces to themselves. Thank God for Bluetooth.

"You've done well so far," King said. "He doesn't suspect anything. But I think it's about time we got Parker to his destination."

"You're the boss," Tony muttered, his voice betraying only the tiniest hint of sarcasm. He switched the sound on once again. "Okay, kid. Enough fooling around. Switching to cruise control. Fasten your seat belts."

"Not much to hold on to." There was a grin in Peter's voice.

"Just sit tight, alright?" Tony turned off the sound again. "You'll get there soon," he muttered to himself.

* * *

Peter had decided to enjoy this ride as much as he could. It was kind of weird lying almost face-down in the suit, with his arms locked at his sides, but he tried not to let it bother him. He assumed that flying wouldn't feel so unnatural if he were actually piloting the suit.

Another building whizzed by in his peripheral vision. Peter tried to turn his head around to look at it, but the armor held his neck in place. Grunting slightly in discomfort, he resigned himself to looking straight ahead.

That sense of warning, that feeling of dread, was itching at the back of his mind again. He wasn't sure exactly where he was now, but he did know, detour or not, that this was definitely not the right path to Avengers Tower.

"Hey, Mister Stark?" he spoke up. "This, uh, this isn't right. The Tower's the other way."

Tony took a minute to respond. "I know."

Peter bit his lip. "Are we going somewhere else?"

"Think so. Something like that."

Peter frowned. "You _think_ so?" he repeated.

"That's w–" Tony's voice was abruptly cut off. Peter could hear a split-second strangled cry before the audio cut out altogether.

"Mister Stark?" Peter's heart plummeted. "Mister Stark?"

A second later, he realized the disappearance of Tony's voice was the least of his concerns.

The suit had gone dark. All the thrusters had shut themselves off.

And Peter was falling.

* * *

 _A/N: Thank you all for your awesome reviews! I hope you enjoyed this chapter! :)_


	6. Free Fall

**6**

"Gah!" Tony fell to his knees, flinching in pain.

"Okay." Expressionless, King lowered the modified taser in his hands. The weapon sparked slightly even as he deactivated it. He knelt in front of Tony, locking his eyes on Tony's face. "I think you've done enough for now, Stark," he said. "Time for the big boys to take over."

"He's – falling," Tony gasped past gritted teeth.

King smiled, the scar on his jaw darkening into shadow. "He sure is, Stark. Should we save him?"

* * *

Ground. Sky. Ground. Sky. Buildings. Sky.

Peter was tumbling end over end, falling toward earth. He never thought gravity could feel so. . . _strong_ before. With the Iron Man suit clinging to his body, he had also never felt so heavy.

He should have been panicking, he should have been screaming for his life, but his throat had closed up. His mouth was open, but no sound was coming out. Spider-sense reverberated through his body in tidal waves, drowning his senses, paralyzing him.

A building swung by his head, feeling way too close. Somewhere below him – above him? – he could hear the sounds of cars.

 _Am I gonna die from the fall, or from being run over?_

Fortunately, he didn't get the chance to ponder the morbid subject for long. Because suddenly, miraculously, the armor flared to life. Fire blasted from the chest rocket, slamming Peter's momentum to a halt.

Peter's head snapped forward like a rag doll's. All the air was punched out of his lungs by the jerky movement, and for a few terrifying seconds, he couldn't breathe.

Then, all at once, oxygen poured into his lungs like cold water. Peter took in great gasps, almost shivering with relief. Heartbeats pulsed hot and fast in his ears.

All of the blasters had come back on, catching him out of the free fall. He could feel warmth coming from the leg, feet, and arm blasters again, and the holographic screen was back.

A small beeping noise drew his attention to the lower left corner of the screen, where his vitals were. He saw, in flashing letters, an alert that read FACIAL ABRASION DETECTED. It showed a picture of the suit's faceplate, and there was a flashing area on the forehead.

 _Crap_. He was bleeding. From the face, too. Peter had learned – the hard way – that facial wounds bled a lot.

"Mister Stark?" Peter gasped. "What the _hell_ is going on?" He knew now – this wasn't just a joyride sent from Tony for the heck of it. This was a trap, and he had been caught right in the middle.

His words were met with silence. He tried again.

"Please, I know you might – you might not be able to tell me, but if you can't say anything, just tell me how to get out of the suit." Peter hated that his voice was squeaking. He was starting to get _really_ scared. "Please, I'm – I'm locked in."

The suit kept Peter in a hover, palms open toward the ground. Pulling in trembly breaths, Peter waited, wondering what was going to happen next.

An unfamiliar voice came into Peter's ear. "Hello, Peter Parker."

"Where's Tony?" Peter shouted. "What'd you do to him?"

The voice lowered to a calm, dark tone. "I'd keep my voice nice and civil if I were you, Parker. 'Cause you _really_ don't want to tick off the guy who is – what should we call it – giving you a drive."

The blaster on Peter's left hand and leg suddenly sputtered, and the suit tipped dangerously to one side. Peter gasped aloud as he swerved midair, feeling the same rush of panic go through him. Both blasters came on just as quickly as they had shut off, lifting him back to a hover again.

"Stark has something called the Mirror Protocol up here. One of his little pet programs. With Stark out of the way for now, I think that means that _I'm_ your new pilot."

 _I'm trapped._ Peter's heart started to pound as he realized the gravity of his situation. This maniac on the other end could drive him headfirst into a building with the slightest tilt of a control. He was basically a video game character, only this time he wasn't holding the controller.

He heard a cool chuckle from the other end. "I can see you're starting to think this through. I can see your vitals as well."

Clamping down on the panic, Peter licked his lips and tried to think. "Who – who are you?"

"Not that it'll mean anything to you, but my name is King."

 _Like King Kong?_ Peter's sarcastic subconscious quipped automatically, like a reflex, but he wisely kept his mouth closed.

Peter swallowed against his dry throat. "What you want?"

"We need your help," King said simply. "And you are going to help us."

Peter's vision went black.

He blinked in surprise at the sudden darkness. It wasn't just the holographic display this time – it seemed like something was actually blocking the eyepieces. He couldn't see anything.

"Sorry about the blackout," King was saying, not sounding the least bit sorry. "But it's going to be necessary. You're headed to a secret facility, which has to stay that way."

 _What?_ Peter's mind spun, trying to catch up.

Suddenly, he could feel the blasters on his palms and feet charging up, and his eyes widened in realization. "No no no, wait –!"

The suit blasted him forward, face-first, into the black, empty air.

Okay, if flying in the suit felt at all uncomfortable before, flying blind like this was a _thousand_ times worse. Peter let out a shout before he could help it and squeezed his eyes shut. With no visual aid whatsoever, it felt like he was about to smash head-on into something at any second.

After a minute, he realized that closing his eyes had actually helped a little – at least, this way, it felt like he was in control of not being able to see.

Slowly, he processed King's last words.

 _Secret facility?_

Peter took deep breaths to calm himself down. Keeping his eyes closed, he tried to get some answers the only way he knew how – casual banter, as if he got kidnapped on a regular basis. "So, what, we're going to Area 51?" His voice cracked, which really undercut the power of the quip.

With all the bad guys he had been encountering lately, he really should have been getting better at this.

"Your ETA is thirty minutes," King said, ignoring him. "Until then, I'd advise you not to try anything clever."

The line went dead, and Peter was left alone, flying in silence and darkness.

* * *

 _A/N: Thanks for reading! I had such a good time reading all your distraught reviews regarding the cliffhanger last chapter. *cackles evilly* x) But seriously, you guys are so sweet. Thanks for the follows, favorites, and reviews!_


	7. The Toy Box

**7**

The suit slammed down into the ground. Peter's head snapped up, his eyes widening.

For the first time in what had felt like hours, his feet were really touching the ground. Nice, solid, _ground_. Relief passed over Peter, but it was quickly replaced with adrenaline at what was coming next.

 _Okay, okay, webs. Get the webbing ready._ He rotated his wrists, feeling the reassuring feel of the leather against his skin. _Come on, Spider-Man, you can still sling your way out of this._

He tensed as the suit powered off, readying himself for the suit to open up. He figured there would be four, maybe five guys surrounding him when he stepped out. If he moved fast enough, the battle would be over in a few short seconds.

Nothing happened.

Peter frowned. He tried moving his arms, but the armor had them locked in place.

Claustrophobia closed over him quickly. Nervous sweat prickled over his body, and his breaths started coming faster and harder. All at once, it felt like the suit was smothering him. He couldn't move, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't think. He couldn't even feel his own fingers rubbing against each other – everything was blocked in by metal.

"Hey!" he yelled hoarsely, his voice sounding louder than usual in the cramped helmet. "Hey, let me out!"

He tried moving his legs, kicking his feet, bending his arms, all completely in vain. The suit had gone completely rigid, and he was fighting a prison of two-inch thick metal that was form-fitted to his body.

In a deeper, more sensible corner of Peter's mind, he knew that freaking out wouldn't help anything. But his fight-or-flight instincts were on fire, and every sensible thought was drowned out by panic.

He gave one final, urgent spasm through his legs, trying to kick his way out.

All at once, the armor opened up, and bright lights poured into view. Peter fell into the bright, cold light with a gasp, unable to stop his momentum. His knees and palms hit the concrete floor at the same time, and the shock jarred up through his whole body.

 _No no no no!_ He pushed himself to his feet as quickly as he could, glancing left and right to take in his new surroundings.

He was in a small, concrete-floored room about the size of a one-car garage. Tall wooden shelves stocked with boxes reached to the ceiling, and there were two long desks running along the length of the room.

He stopped short when he saw Tony.

"Well, this is awkward." Tony sniffed once and looked over.

Panting heavily, trying to get his breath back, Peter straightened up and squinted. "What –? Uh, hey! Mister Stark. What are you doing here?"

"Oh, I was in the neighborhood." Tony flipped a screwdriver around in his hands and tweaked something on the lump of metal and wires on the table in front of him. "Saw a dingy old garage, looked like the perfect place to lock myself up in a closet." Glancing over at Peter, he twitched his head up in a nod. "You?"

Peter glanced behind him, still trying to take in the scope of the room. He could feel adrenaline pulsing in his wrists, and he was restless with the leftover energy.

Behind him, the suit stood exactly where he had landed. It was still fully open, but it had gone dark, like it had been shut off.

Tony yanked his hand away as the thing in his hands suddenly sparked, throwing a glittering arc of sparks across the table. "Gah – dammit!" He sucked on his burned finger.

Peter jumped at the sound, his head whipping back around. "What are you making, anyways?"

"Paper mâché volcano," Tony shot back. With a heavy sigh, he tossed the lump of metal onto the table and rubbed a wrist over his eyes.

Peter walked over. The thing on the table, smoking slightly, looked a lot like a bomb, or at least something similar.

"Told you, it's nothing." Tony leaned heavily against the table with a grimace.

Peter glanced over and suddenly realized Tony's other hand was pressed tightly to his abdomen, and his fingers were trembling.

Peter's eyes widened. "Mister Stark, are you okay?"

Tony gave a light gasp of pain. "Floor," he grunted out.

"Okay. Okay." Peter ducked under Tony's arm, taking the brunt of the man's weight onto his shoulder. Carefully, if somewhat awkwardly, they side-stepped toward the wall, and Peter squatted down, lowering Tony onto the concrete.

It had been hard to tell before, but Peter could see now that one side of Tony's face was glistening with blood. A dark purple bruise spread across his lower jaw.

"Oh, god, uh –" Peter's hands hovered in the air. "What can I – what should I do?"

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Hey." Tony grabbed Peter's wrists and raised his eyebrows. "Unless there's an MD after your name, don't try to fix me, okay? I'm _fine_."

Peter's eyes lingered on the cut on Tony's forehead, but he nodded.

Tony released him and pressed one hand to his abdomen again. He tilted his head at Peter, his eyes narrowing just slightly. "What happened to you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Shiner." Tony tapped his own cheek, indicating where Peter's bruise was.

Peter's hand went to his face. "I, uh, fell." He swallowed and gave a nod.

 _Fell. . ._ Peter could almost see Tony processing the word. "Uh-huh," the man said after a moment. He sighed and patted the concrete floor beside him. "Alright, sit. You look like crap."

"Thanks," Peter said. A wave of tiredness suddenly came over him, and he lowered himself onto the concrete.

"Where are we, anyways?" Peter glanced around the room. The boxes on the wooden shelves were made of metal, and they all seemed to be sealed with electronic locks.

Tony pressed his lips together and shook his head to one side. "No idea. Didn't exactly get a window seat on the plane."

"Are we still in New York?"

"Hey, of the two of us, which one literally _just_ flew in here? Presumably having just seen the outside of wherever-we-are?"

 _Oh_. "Yeah, I, uh, didn't really see?" Peter said hesitantly. "The whole last half was dark."

Tony frowned, staring straight ahead. "What, they hooded you? In the suit?"

"Kinda? No. . . I guess. The, uh, eyepieces just went completely dark. I don't know what happened."

Tony's eyes closed as if he had just remembered something. "Right. Nighttime Mode. _Dammit_." He sighed. "Boy, bet that wasn't fun if you weren't expecting it."

"No kidding," Peter said with feeling.

"Hey, what'd you think of your first ride?" Tony asked suddenly, nudging Peter's shoulder with his. He sniffed and waved one hand in the air. "I mean, _yes_ , it all led to an eventual and unfortunate kidnapping, but. . . ? You know, generally, before all that happened, what'd you think?"

"Uh, yeah, it was good," Peter said.

Tony frowned. "'Good'," he repeated tonelessly.

"Well –" Peter backpedaled. "No, it was really awesome, I'm just so used to my own suit, you know? It was kinda weird not having. . . my webs, and going from building to buil–"

"Okay, so you like imminent feelings of vertigo and dizzying swinging motions. Got it." Tony cleared his throat and straightened up against the wall. "So much for the Iron Man suit I was going to give you for Christmas."

Peter laughed out loud, and Tony gave a little grin despite himself.

"Do you know who the –"

Peter was abruptly cut off as keys rasped against the lock of the door. He straightened up against the wall, feeling his pulse speed up again.

"Oh, look, company," Tony muttered. "Hooray."

The door juddered open, and several men filed into the room. There were four in all, each holding guns across their chests. Peter felt a familiar prickle of spider-sense at the back of his neck, like his skin was buzzing with electricity.

"Bad guys?" he said in a faint whisper to Tony.

"Bad? Yeah. You could say that," he muttered.

"Okay, don't worry, I got them!"

In one move, Peter leapt to his feet and raised both arms, tapping both trigger pads of his webshooters.

Nothing happened.

Peter's eyes snapped open in shock. "What?!" He tapped the right web shooter trigger again, trying to fire a web into the first guy's face. Nothing. Not even a slight spatter.

He knew there was plenty of fluid in both canisters – he _knew_ it. He always made sure they were both filled up before leaving school.

Tony opened his mouth, closed it, then scratched the back of his head. "Yeah, _probably_ should have warned you about that," he said.

Peter whipped around. "About what? What the hell happened?"

"Electromagnetic pulse," came a new voice from the doorway.

Peter whipped around.

The man had to duck slightly to get through the doorway. As he stepped inside the room, it was obvious he was the leader. He was dressed in SHIELD-like gear, similar to the others', but the style was slightly different.

His eyes cut into Peter like ice, and Peter absentmindedly took a step back. The man's eyes were such a light blue they were almost white.

Peter blinked. "W-what?"

"Electromagnetic pulse," the man repeated. He nodded at Peter's wrists. "Suit's capable of giving off a mild one. Wouldn't damage anything serious within a two-mile radius, but it does make smaller kinds of technology act a little screwy."

 _I recognize that voice._ "You're–" Peter pressed his lips together in thought. "You're – that guy. . . from the suit."

"I am that guy," he said, smiling humorlessly. "Jason King."

"I'm –" Peter suddenly realized what he had done, and in a flash of panic he shoved his jacket sleeves over the webshooters. "I'm. . . Mister Stark's – intern?"

King gave him a reprimanding look. "Kid," he said. "We hacked into Avengers Tower. You think we don't know your secret identity yet?"

Peter looked away, feeling his heart pounding in his chest.

"Okay, he knows you, you know him. We've all met before. Happy reunion." Tony grunted as he got to his feet, bracing against the wall for support. "Shall we move on?"

King's gaze cut to Tony. "Gladly."

"Okay then, me first," Tony said. "Where are we?"

"You haven't recognized it yet?" King asked. "Interesting."

Tony's voice held a note of impatience. "Any reason why I should?"

"Yes, actually. You own it." King raised both arms, gesturing around at the room. "Welcome to your Toy Box."

Peter glanced at Tony. The man's face was unreadable.

"Toy Box?" Peter said hesitantly. "What's. . . what's that?"

"Storage facility." King answered him without moving his eyes from Tony. "What you're standing in right now. It's where Stark keeps all his unused toys, trinkets. . . ." King's eyes narrowed. "Or projects deemed too dangerous to exist."

Tony made an effort to breathe evenly. "Care to elaborate there?"

"I think you and I both know what we're talking about." King spoke softly. "The Casket."

Tony swore softly under his breath.

"Wait, what's the Casket?" Peter asked. He felt slightly stupid for asking – clearly, he was a few steps behind on the conversation.

King looked from Tony to Peter and back again. Understanding came over his face as a dark smile edged his lips.

"Didn't tell your mentee here about the Casket?" he said. He tilted his head to one side. "Fair enough. Woulda scared the hell out of him, if he had known."

Tony worked his jaw and didn't look at Peter. "Didn't have to," he said, his tone much lighter than what he was feeling. "The Casket was put out of commission. Scrapped. It's toast."

"Hm." King tilted his head to one side. "But we know that's not exactly true."

Peter still didn't have an answer. "So," he said tentatively, "what is it?"

King's eyes shifted back to Peter. "Right this way," he said, gesturing to the open door. "Come see for yourself."

* * *

 _A/N: I LOVE YOUR REVIEWS! :D I'm so glad you were all excited for the new chapter. Hope you enjoyed it. Thank you for favoriting and following!_


	8. The Casket

**8**

The hallways were dark.

Peter wasn't sure if they were always like that, or if the lights had been purposefully dimmed so that it was harder to mentally map out where they were going. If that was the case, HEL really needn't have bothered; Peter's head was spinning so much it was hard to focus on anything.

He risked a quick glance over his shoulder. Tony walked behind him, in the single file line they had been arranged into. The man seemed to be limping, just slightly, and he still held a hand to his abdomen.

Behind Tony, there were two other men – agents of HEL or whatever they called themselves – tailing the group. With his head craned around, Peter accidentally made eye contact with one of them, and in a panic he whipped his head back around.

"We were offered a deal," King spoke from the head of the group, his voice echoing eerily against the darkened hall. "Not too long after SHIELD fell and HEL began. An. . . interested party got in touch with us."

"And just how _interested_ was this party?" Tony asked in a mutter.

"Very," King said. "They offered us a. . . very pretty price for a very easy deal, let's say that."

King stopped walking, and Peter abruptly skidded to a stop behind him. He blinked and looked up.

They had stopped at a hangar door, about the size of a garage door. The number _C-27_ was painted in dark blue lettering across the top. They had passed a bunch other doors identical to this one, and Peter was guessing that behind each one was Tony's unused tech.

There was a keypad on the wall beside the door. King looked at Tony and gestured to it. "Stark, if you would do the honors?"

Tony raised his eyebrows. "Really? That's your plan? I'm pretty sure you already know your way in."

"Suit yourself." King slipped a device off his belt. It was roughly the same size and shape of a credit card, and he fitted it to a slit in the side of the keypad. Immediately, the screen at the top came to life, rapidly filling in the seven-digit code with asterisks as the device did its work. A positive beep sounded, and a red light on the wall above the door flared green.

As the door started to open, Tony watched as King retracted the device and slid it back onto his belt. He gestured to it with a twitch of his head. "Shoplift that from SHIELD?"

"We saved the best tech for ourselves," King replied. "Besides, we programmed it."

"Yeah, of course you did," Tony muttered.

Peter watched as the door juddered upward on its track, and King seemed to notice his expression. "Excited, Parker?" he asked. A grin lifted his lips. "I think you're really gonna like it."

 _I think I'm really not._

Peter very much doubted that 'the Casket' would be a literal coffin, but on the other hand, weirder things had definitely happened before. He braced himself and slowly followed King into the darkened hangar.

Lights in the ceiling snapped on as they walked in. Blinking in the sudden brightness, Peter raised a hand to his eyes and tried to focus on what he was looking at.

In the center of the hangar – which seemed to be otherwise empty – was a. . . thing.

It looked like some kind of computer, but it was big, maybe the size of a fridge lying on its side. It _was_ actually shaped like a berth – not quite a coffin, but more like some kind of sci-fi pod. Flat panes of blueish-black glass formed the lid, but to Peter's relief, they weren't see-through. Actually, the glass panels looked more like some kind of interface, like one big touchscreen. There were four identical indentations, each about the size of a thumb drive, to the left of the top rim of the device.

The whole thing was dark, as if it had been lying dormant for a while. It wasn't exactly the death ray Peter had been expecting, but he didn't really know what he was looking at, either.

"That's it?" Peter asked.

King circled around the box and turned around. "This is it."

Peter wasn't quite sure what to make of it. _At least it's not a weapon_ , was his first, somewhat relieved, thought. This was followed by _. . ._ Is _it a weapon?_

As if reading his mind, King looked over at Tony. "You going to tell him? Or should I?"

Tony gritted his teeth and didn't meet Peter's eye.

Peter had the feeling that he didn't want to know, but he asked anyway. "Mister Stark. . . ?"

"Yeah." Tony sharply looked up. "It's. . . a safeguard."

King made a scoffing sound and shook his head.

Tony spoke louder. "A safeguard, for the world, against us."

Peter shook his head slightly, not comprehending. "What –?"

"Us." Tony elaborated. "You, me. The Avengers."

"What do you mean, _against_?"

Tony drew in a breath. "We are some of the most physically and mentally powerful people on the planet," he said, his voice low. "And if something goes wrong? If one of us goes rogue, gets turned, controlled, what do we do? There's no contingency plan for super-powered beings."

Peter's eyes darted over to the Casket and back to Tony again. "Okay," he said slowly.

"Stark?" King interrupted. He raised his eyebrows with meaning. "Cut the brochure shit."

Peter jumped in. "Mister Stark?" he said. "What. . . is it? Exactly?"

A corner of Tony's mouth twitched, like he was trying to figure out what to say. "It's a way to – stop. An Avenger."

Peter blinked involuntarily. "S-stop?" he repeated uneasily.

"The Casket's a hub," Tony said, speaking quickly. "It houses eleven separate programs, different contingency plans, all ending with non-lethal ways to temporarily – hey, _temporarily_ – incapacitate someone on the team. Not kill, just. . . contain."

"So, in case of – wait," Peter said, frowning. This was all coming way too fast. "Isn't this, like, exactly what the Accords were about?"

"The Accords." Tony clapped his hands and pointed at Peter as if he had just said the right answer. "Why'd you think I jumped at the chance to sign? Sokovia just gave us the perfect chance – the _public_ chance – to admit we need to be kept in check."

"One small difference," King said, his voice gravelly.

"The _difference_ ," Tony broke in, "is that the Casket is internal. Closed-circuit." He turned to Peter. "See those slots at the top?"

Peter had noticed them straight away. "Yeah?"

"Thumbprint scanners." Tony sniffed once. "Four Avengers would have to scan their prints into it just to crack into the menu screen."

King made a sound of disgust. "Biological locks," he muttered. "The one thing we can't hack."

" _Kind_ of the point, yeah."

Peter eyed the slots. "So what happens when they're all unlocked?"

Tony opened his mouth and hesitated for a moment. "Then," he said slowly, "you pick your target."

"Oh."

"It's a two-way system," Tony said. "If your name's on the list, you can both unlock the Casket or be its target. It's a last-ditch, final-resort kind of deal, but it seemed fair. Avengers keeping tabs on the Avengers." Tony shrugged one shoulder. "Seemed like the kind of thing Cap would appreciate."

"What happened?" Peter asked.

"I shut it down," Tony answered after a moment. "It's not how the Avengers work."

"One other difference," King spoke up, "is that the Casket program was designed and activated long before the Avengers were ever a threat to the planet."

Tony shot him an annoyed look. "So, maybe I created it early on and tacked the names on as we went. Would you rather have insurance before or after the car gets totaled?"

"Savvy metaphors won't make a difference to the UN, Stark. The Casket wasn't approved by the Accords, which I remind you are still in effect. What you've done could be considered an act of war."

"You're a narc, then? Okay, so rat me out," Tony said, shrugging his shoulders. "You've got your evidence and your accused in one room. What are you waiting for?"

"We're not here for that. You're here to help us hold up our end of the deal," King said. "Our employer asked us to unlock it, so. . . ." He shrugged one shoulder. "You two are going to unlock it."

Peter, who had been listening silently for a moment, frowned. "Wait, but you said only Avengers can unlock it," he said.

Both men looked at him at the same time. There was a silence.

"Problem?" King asked.

"I'm not. . . I mean, I wouldn't be on the list, right? I'm, I'm not. . . ." Peter looked at Tony as if asking for help. ". . .technically. . . an Avenger?"

Realization came over Tony's face. "Crap," he mumbled to himself, running a hand over his face. "Uuh, technically, yes," he said, louder. He scratched the back of his head. "Guess I. . . forgot. To tell you."

Peter's eyes widened. "I'm an Avenger?" he asked in a hushed whisper. "Like, officially?"

Tony looked somewhat pained. "Your. . . name is on the list," he said, making it sound like a question. "So, in the most technical sense. . . yes."

In that second, Peter wasn't sure whether he felt honored or terrified. Like, _Congrats, you're officially an Avenger! By the way, your name is on this death list._

"Welcome to the team, kid." Tony gave him a short pat on the back, but his attention was still focused on King. "Slight hiccup, though – even with kid-hero here, the Casket still needs four prints."

"Yeah." The man pressed something on the Casket, and the device started whirring to life. "So let's just say it was damn lucky you both stopped by today."

Tony closed his eyes briefly and opened them. "Okay, I don't know how great you are at math, but we only make two," he said. He tilted his head, mock-thoughtful. "That's. . . _less_ than four, right?"

"I wouldn't mock just yet, Stark," King said. "Because I don't think you know the whole story yet."

Tony's voice held a note of impatience. "I _wrote_ the whole story, pal. Prologue, epilogue, and acknowledgments. I think I'd know if. . . ." He trailed off as the lights flared to life on the Casket.

Peter's eyes widened as he saw it too.

The four slots at the rim of the device had lit up. Two of them glowed red, indicating they were locked.

But the other two ports glowed a bright green.

The Casket was already halfway open.

"Son of a bitch," Peter heard Tony mutter under his breath.

"Huh," King said, raising his eyebrows, mock-surprised. "Not what you were expecting, then?" He circled around the Casket.

"Mind if I check the – what are the – ID codes," Tony asked in a mutter.

"Had a feeling you'd want to know." King picked up a tablet sitting beside the Casket and handed it to Tony. "We've already coded them. Thumbprints belonging to one Nick Fury and Maria Hill."

Tony sucked in his breath.

Peter's eyebrows furrowed. _Nick Fury?_ That was the director of SHIELD, right?

"The _list_ , as Stark calls it, actually has fourteen names on it," King said. "The eleven, the core eleven, are all Avengers." He gestured to Peter, raising his eyebrows. "Like yourselves. But there are three others, three auxiliary names and prints that can substitute in the place of an Avenger." King nodded at the tablet Tony held in his hands. "Nick Fury and Maria Hill, of course, and another former agent of SHIELD named Phil Coulson."

Peter looked surprised. "Are they here too?" he asked, pointing back at the door they had entered.

"Don't look at us," King said with a shrug. "Those locks were open when we first came across this thing."

"Who told you about this?" Tony gripped the tablet by its edges. "How did you know."

"We already told you. Our employer got in touch with us two months ago –"

Tony looked up sharply. "Yeah, you're gonna have to do better than that, Scarface. Give me a _name_ ," he said, his voice rising.

"They asked to remain anonymous," King said. "I think you can understand why."

Tony locked eyes with him. "Who's your target?" he asked, his voice low.

King shrugged one shoulder. "That information wasn't included in our part of the deal. We were to unlock the Casket and leave the rest up to our employer."

"Not gonna happen." Tony's arms were crossed. "Sorry."

King raised an eyebrow. "I take it you're turning down our proposal?"

"Let's see, your proposal to – without cause or reason, by the way – use my tech against my team to take down one of my friends? Yeah," Tony said, "I'm turning it down. Sorry to disappoint."

"Okay." King spoke up to the other two agents near the door. "Henley, Marcus. Take Stark back to the garage."

Tony raised his eyebrows. "You're kicking me out now?"

"I need a word alone with Peter," King said. "Besides, I think you'll need some time to think about our offer."

The two agents walked up behind Tony, holding their guns over their chests. Tony didn't so much as glance at them; his gaze was locked on on King. "Not gonna change my mind," he said.

"Probably not," King said. He gestured to Peter with a tilt of his head. "But maybe I can change his."

Tony's eyes shifted over to Peter, and for a brief second they shared a look. Tony gave him a little nod. "Stiff upper lip, kid."

Without another word, Tony turned around. The two agents, Henley and Marcus, led him out, and the hangar fell into silence.

Peter turned to King. "I'm with Tony," he said quickly.

King almost rolled his eyes. "Expected as much." The ex-SHIELD agent circled back to the Casket. "You know it's non-lethal, right?" he asked over his shoulder. "No one's gonna get hurt."

If today so far had been any indication, it didn't seem to matter to these people whether or not others got hurt. Peter took a deep breath, steeled his nerves. "I'm not going to do this," he said. "Tony was right. There's no reason to –"

"'Tony was right,'" King mimicked.

Peter stopped, startled.

King locked his gaze on Peter. "That's your way of thinking, right? Tony Stark, your precious mentor, can do no wrong. Do you think he was _right_ for building this?" he pressed. "Creating 'contingency plans', activating them without anyone else's knowledge?"

"He said he shut it down," Peter said uncertainly.

King actually laughed. "And what do you think now?" he asked, gesturing to the Casket which was lit up with the harsh red and green slots. "The Casket program was never shut down. Not all the way. Stark says a lot of things, but he only follows through on what he wants to."

As King was talking, Peter felt something click on his wrist. Frowning, he stole a quick glance down at his arm, and he realized that his webshooters had somehow fixed themselves. The electromagnetic pulse had worn off, and it seemed Tony's technology had some kind of self-repairing feature.

Hope flooded through him. He curled his fingers into the palm of his hand and realized the trigger piece had flipped down.

He had his webshooters back.

Heart pounding, Peter quietly pulled his jacket sleeves over his wrists and tucked his hands behind his back. He tried to listen to what King was saying, but inside he was quickly plotting out a way out of here.

Could he remember the way back to the garage he and Tony were in? Maybe. He hadn't exactly been paying attention.

". . . to make your decision, Parker?"

With a jolt, Peter realized he hadn't been paying attention to King, either. Staring back into the man's white-blue eyes, he steeled his nerves and raised his arm to fire a web.

King's arm shot up at the same time and caught Peter's wrist.

Peter's fingers snapped away from the trigger without firing, and he gasped. This dude was _seriously_ strong.

King locked eyes with him. "Bad move," he said, his voice unusually soft. "I was hoping you wouldn't."

Peter struggled against King's grip, panicked at being caught more than anything else.

"Stark's tech can fix itself. A pretty handy feature. We figured that pulse wouldn't kill your shooters for long, but now?" King shook his head to one side and _tsked_ his tongue. "You blew your chance, kid. Next time, give yourself longer to formulate a real plan."

With his other hand, King grabbed the webshooter and gave a short, hard yank.

"No!" Peter shouted.

The webshooter broke. King tore it away from Peter's wrist as it fell apart in his hand. Tossing it to the concrete floor, he lifted his foot and crushed it under his boot.

Peter winced and looked away.

Panting slightly, King turned back to him. "Now you're going to go back to Stark," he said softly, his face inches away from Peter's. "And you're going to decide _very_ carefully whether you'd rather cooperate or die." He straightened up, regaining his composure. "You have ten minutes to decide."

* * *

 **A/N: Ta-daaa! It's finally here! I really do apologize for the delay. Writer's block has been cruel to me lately, and my inner perfectionist kept me fussing over this chapter for weeks. But thank you for all your patience (and impatience – both kept me going, lol!). Oh, by the way, all of your reviews last time were flat-out fantastic _._ I had such a good time reading them all. :D**


	9. Distraction and Diversion

**9**

The door shut behind Peter as he stumbled into the room, and the noise of the lock rasped around the concrete walls.

Peter looked up, and his eyes met Tony's.

As if to avoid speaking, Tony put a screwdriver between his teeth and focused his attention on the little device he was holding.

"Mister Stark, what was that?" Peter asked, walking forward.

Tony glanced up and took the screwdriver out of his mouth. "What was what?"

"The Casket. Just – the whole thing."

Tony tweaked something. "What, you weren't paying attention?"

"You know what I mean." Peter could tell he was avoiding the question. "Why didn't you _tell_ me?"

Tony's fingers drummed against the table. "Same reason I didn't tell anyone else on the team," he answered quietly. "Nothing to tell. I shut it down."

"That's not what it looks like now!"

"Yeah, well, obviously, someone's turned it back on!" Tony snapped. He grimaced in frustration and ran a hand over his face. "I am going to _kill_ Fury," he half-mumbled to himself.

When Peter didn't say anything, Tony sighed heavily. "Yes," he answered quietly. "Technically, the Casket is active now." He looked up, studying Peter's expression. "But it's not like this is a volatile system," he continued. "It's not Ultron. I learned my lesson. No big explosions, no–" he waved his hand in the air, searching for the words, "– no glitches in the system, okay? Not this time. This whole project was playing with fire, and I made sure to cap both ends."

Peter didn't respond.

Tony heaved a sigh and looked away, shaking his head. After a moment, he turned back around, his expression serious. "Pete, I need you to listen to me here," he said in a low tone. "The Casket was a mistake. I recognize that, okay? That's exactly why I had it locked up in one of the most secure facilities I know and own. But I'm not planning on giving my fingerprint to that thing, and I'm pretty sure you're not, either. So whether you agree with it or not, we're gonna need each other's help to bust out of here, okay?"

Peter blinked several times, fighting the lump rising in his throat. "Okay," he said finally. "Okay." He took a deep breath. "What do we do?"

"First," Tony said, "we're gonna wait for about. . . ." He thrust his arm out and checked his watch. "Oh. . . twelve seconds."

Peter's eyebrows drew together. "What–"

An electrical snap, like a lightbulb popping, came from the corner. Peter physically flinched, hunching his shoulders up to his ears, and spun around. "What was that?!"

In a corner of the ceiling, dark grey smoke curled up from a blackened lump of machinery. Tiny white sparks spat from the smoke, sizzling out before they reached the ground.

" _That_ ," Tony said, "would the be smoldering remains of their audio and visual." He opened his mouth but then closed it. Frowning, he checked his watch. "Huh. Off by a little bit there. Okay." He tapped the face a few times.

"How'd you do that?"

"Told you. Paper mâché volcano."

 _The bomb,_ Peter remembered. " _This_ is the plan?" he asked, pointing at the smoking camera.

"Yep, but we're going to have to move a bit quickly, dear." Taking a hold of Peter's shoulders, Tony guided him over to the doorway. "Still got the webshooters, right?"

"Y-yeah. I mean – I have one," Peter admitted.

Tony stopped, and released Peter's shoulders with a frown. "That's. . . _odd,_ because I could have sworn you had two hands."

"That guy broke my other one, okay?" Peter hissed.

" _King_ broke it?!" Tony's eyes flitted to the ceiling, as if he were praying for patience. "That man has _no_ regard for fine technology." He gave a short sigh of frustration. "Okay, fine. Whatever. Just add it to his bill."

He angled Peter toward the door and pointed to it over Peter's shoulder. "Two, maybe three guards are gonna come through that door. Take them down, web them up, whatever, just make sure the door doesn't get locked again, okay?"

Peter looked over his shoulder as Tony strode back to the table. "What are you doing?"

"Assembling the rest," Tony muttered in reply. Without looking up, he pointed towards Peter. "Door!"

Peter spun around, and sure enough, at that second, the door banged open and two armed men burst into the room.

"Hey, guys," Peter said cordially. Raising his hand, he fired a web straight into the muzzle of the first guy's gun. The web caught, and he flicked his wrist sideways, yanking the gun into the other one.

Peter dove forward to the floor and sprung back to his feet with a kick, simultaneously knocking both guns out of the men's hands. "Don't need those!" He shot four more spurts of webbing at the weapons on the floor, aiming for the nozzles and triggers so they couldn't accidentally be set off.

Unfortunately, he had lost track of where the actual bad guys were. A hand came out of nowhere and grabbed at his face, yanking his head backwards.

"Gah – hey!" Peter slipped backwards, blindly reaching behind him.

Spider-sense flashed in Peter's brain like an alarm. Without even thinking, he pushed off from the floor and kicked outward with both legs. His feet connected with something – a shoulder, maybe? – and he heard a shout of pain.

 _Score one for the spider-sense!_ Peter's feet hit the floor again. The other guy still had one arm locked around his neck, and it was starting to get really annoying.

"Okay. Time to go," Peter grunted breathlessly. With an immense strength that he sometimes forgot he had, Peter ducked, pulling the man behind him all the way over his shoulder. There was a thud as he hit the floor.

Peter straightened, panting slightly. Both of the agents were sprawled out on the floor, half-consciously mumbling curses and grunts of pain.

He looked up, and his eyes met Tony's, which were wide with surprise.

"Huh," he said. "Kid, remind me never to piss you off."

Peter sprung to his feet. He couldn't shake off a glow of pride. "Thanks!" _...That was a compliment, right?_

Finally, he had the perfect chance to show off to Mister Stark what he could _really_ do. Sure, Tony had been _there_ in Germany, but he hadn't really seen what he could do up close.

"Web them up?" Tony said, pointing to the unconscious men as he strode for the door. He ducked out the doorframe and looked into the hall.

The hall was quiet – those two men must have been the only guards in front of the garage door.

He sensed Peter walking up behind him. "Anybody coming?" the kid asked in a whisper.

"Not yet," Tony said in a tone of voice that implied that was going to change.

"Shouldn't we. . . y'know, go?"

Sharply, Tony pulled his head back into the room. "Yes. You need to move."

Peter blinked. "Me?"

"Yes, you. You need a suit, right?"

"What? Yeah, I guess, but – I left it in my backpack. Back in the alley, just before you picked me up, it's –"

Tony cut him off. "Doesn't matter. The Toy Box has some extras here."

 _Extras?_ Peter's eyes widened as the words sunk in.

"Should be –" Tony pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes in concentration. "D-12. Hangar D-12. Go down this hall, all the way to the end, and turn right. All the hangars are numbered. You'll know if you're going the right way."

"Okay." Peter could feel his heartbeat speeding up in anticipation. "Then what?"

Tony frowned. "What do you mean, 'then what'? _Then_ , you find the closest exit and you get the hell out of here. The exit signs should be marked at every corner, so –"

"Wait, wait, where are you gonna be?" Peter interrupted, frowning.

"Making a diversion so they don't find you on your way out."

Peter couldn't believe what he was hearing. "What about this King dude? All the SHIELD hackers?"

"Not your deal," Tony said instantly. "Leave them to me. Right now, number one priority is getting you out of here. _Safe_."

"I'm not a little kid!" Peter protested, his voice bordering on a whine. "Once I have my suit –"

"Then you'll still be a fifteen-year old kid underneath a million-dollar suit," Tony finished firmly.

"Why won't you let me help?"

"Because you were dragged into this," Tony said, his voice taking on a low, almost pleading tone. Meeting Peter's eyes, he gave a short, frustrated sigh. "Because _I_ dragged you into this. That's not okay. That was not supposed to happen, alright, and I tried _so hard_ –" His voice caught, and he abruptly cut himself off, shaking his head. "But now it's _my_ job to make sure you get out of this okay," he finished.

Peter clenched his jaw, feeling his eyes sting with emotion.

Tony rubbed his forehead with his thumb. "Okay, we're wasting breath here. You need to move, now. Scram. Skedaddle."

Peter hesitantly took a step backward out of the garage. "How are you going to get out?"

Tony gave him a bright, fake smile. "Bye!" he said pointedly, and he shut the door in Peter's face.

Anything to get the kid moving away from here.

Alone once again in the garage, Tony's gaze flitted over to the corner of the ceiling.

He had to hurry. King would be coming back into the garage any moment now. Putting a screwdriver between his teeth, Tony lifted himself up to the smoldering remains of the security camera in the corner. He carefully pulled the camera from the wall, exposing the bright blue and red wires behind it.

"Hello, Mr. Security Camera," he mumbled around the screwdriver in his mouth. He thumbed the wires, carefully sorting through for the one he was looking for. "Tell me all your secrets. . . ."

* * *

 _C-48, C-49 – jeez, Mister Stark has a lot of unused stuff – wait! D-01, D-02. . . ._

Peter's heartbeat sped up. He was on the right track now.

Walking as fast as he could down the hallway, he read the numbered doors, counting down to the one Tony had told him about.

All of a sudden, out of nowhere, a loud thud echoed around the ceiling.

Peter instantly ducked, flattening himself against a hangar door. He was already on edge, and now his heart was pounding even harder. _Did somebody just see me?_

It took him a moment to realize the thuds were continuing, almost at a rhythmic pace. He looked up, totally confused.

 _What the heck. . . ?_

Suddenly, a long, dissonant chord squealed throughout the hallway. It sounded like a. . . guitar?

It clicked in Peter's mind at the same moment he noticed the speaker in the ceiling. This was a song being played over the PA system.

" _I. . . AM. . . IRON MAN_ ," the speakers garbled, sounding staticky and terrifying.

Peter grinned. This _had_ to be Mister Stark's diversion. As the song continued, morphing into a five-note beat he recognized, he leapt up and continued at a run down the hallway.

.

* * *

 _A/N: I listened to 'Iron Man' by Black Sabbath so many times for research purposes for this chapter. It was worth it!_

 _Readers, I absolutely love ya. Thanks for being here, and as always, thank you for following and favoriting!_

 _Many thanks to monochre, LoonyLovegood1981, cargumentluv, AppleSpongeCake (your name always makes me hungry, lol), and Shadow-wolf78 for your reviews last chapter! You're all so sweet and I hope you have a great week!_


	10. Peter

**10**

"Extras," Tony had said.

 _Some_ extra Spider-Man suits.

He hadn't mentioned that there were, like, _thousands_ of them.

Peter stood at the entrance of Hangar D-12 with his mouth wide open.

Closet-sized containers filled the room, each one displaying a Spider-Man suit behind glass. Some of them were stacked on top of each other, making the room look bigger than it really was. At a glance, Peter could count ten suits, but there had to be over thirty in the hangar.

"You overdid it, Mister Stark," Peter mumbled to himself, looking around in complete awe. "You really, _really_ overdid it."

The first few suits actually looked pretty close to his _original_ original suit – red on the chest, entirely blue arms, and short red gloves equipped with webshooters. The further they went, though, it was apparent that Tony's own influence had trickled in. The suits became far more streamlined, more trim, and there were various experiments with different colors.

Peter tried to shake himself off; he didn't have enough time to geek out over each and every suit, and he had to choose fast.

After a moment, he picked a suit that looked the closest to his own. It had the same red coloring as his, but the blue parts were silver instead of blue. Also, the 'spider-webbing' lines traced all over it were thinner and silvery, making the suit look almost shiny in texture.

There were credit-card-sized keypads on the wall beside every containment unit. Peter tapped the button labeled RELEASE, and the suit immediately slackened and slipped off its stand.

Peter grabbed at the floppy suit before it could fall to the ground. Giving a glance over his shoulder, he wrestled his shirt off and started undressing.

Stripped down to his boxers, he shoved his clothes into the empty containment unit and pulled the suit on. It was loose and billowy, and he tapped the Droney in the middle of the chest.

Immediately the slippery fabric swiveled tighter around his body, settling into a snug fit like a second skin.

Peter couldn't believe how good this felt. He had his suit back – well, he had _a_ suit back. This one was definitely different from his own, but he couldn't place exactly why it felt so weird. It felt. . . heavier, almost? Maybe he was just imagining it.

He pressed the trigger of the suit's webshooter, and the display came to life in front of his eyes. Blue holograms spun around the webshooter, indicating that he had a similar range of webshooter combinations to the ones in his own suit.

"Yes," he whispered, and he realized there was a huge smile plastered on his face. _Finally_.

Looking up at the ceiling, he raised an arm and shot at the ceiling.

A flashing error message popped up.

 _[[WEB CARTRIDGE ERROR]]_

"What?" Frowning, Peter lowered his arm and pressed the web cartridge on his wrist.

The panel popped open, revealing. . . an empty pocket. There was no web cartridge in it at all.

 _Oh. Right._ Stupid. Of course there was no web fluid. Why would there be? Mister Stark didn't have the formula for his webbing; Peter made it himself.

He looked over at his clothes he had shoved into the empty storage unit. He had taken his one remaining webshooter off when he had gotten dressed. Kneeling, he popped the web cartridge out of his webshooter.

It felt way too light in his hands – he was going to have to be careful to not use it up too fast. He quickly fitted the cartridge into the suit's webshooter, and the error message disappeared.

Racing over to the open door, Peter leapt up onto the wall and started crawling up it. He crawled out of the hangar upside-down, figuring that he had the least chance of being seen on the ceiling.

The song blaring over the loudspeakers seemed even louder in the hallway, and it took Peter a minute to get his bearings. Especially hanging upside-down.

Unfortunately, much like the walk to the first hangar, HEL had somehow killed all the lights. The hallway was pitch-black, which meant none of the exit signs were lit up either.

So much for Tony's plan of escape.

Taking a random stab, Peter started crawling across the ceiling towards the first corner he saw. Corners should eventually lead to another hallway, right?

He suddenly had an idea. "Karen?" he asked in a tentative whisper. He tapped his ear, waiting for any kind of response. "Hey, Karen, are you in this suit? Anybody?"

A positive beep came from the mask. "Top of the morning, boss. How can I help?"

That was definitely _not_ Karen.

"Oh, uh, hi. . . suit AI," Peter said, still in a whisper. "Sorry, but – who are you?"

"Boss calls me FRIDAY, but you can call me what you like."

Peter wasn't great with determining accents, but he guessed the voice was some kind of Scottish. _Irish, maybe? That's like Scottish, right?_ "FRIDAY?"

"Aye. I'm afraid I haven't got any record of a 'Karen' in my database. Want me to check the network for a 'Karen'?"

"Uh, no, it's okay. FRIDAY's fine," Peter said. He prowled silently across the ceiling over to the corner and peeked around it. He narrowed his eyes into the dark hallway, hearing the lenses whir. "Do you know how to get out of here?"

"I'm afraid not," FRIDAY responded, and Peter could swear it sounded like she was frowning as she spoke. _How does Tony even program these things?_ "My last records show that Mister Stark stored this suit in the Toy Box, and all schematics of the Toy Box are unavailable for security reasons."

"Great," Peter muttered to himself. He looked both ways, then went left, padding as silently as he could across the ceiling.

Crawling past a speaker in the ceiling, he suddenly had a much better idea. "FRIDAY, can you ID this song?"

"Currently playing is 'Iron Man' by –"

"Yeah, it's okay, I know what it's called," Peter interrupted. "Do you know how long it is? How long does it have left to go?"

"There are three minutes and eighteen seconds remaining," FRIDAY responded diligently.

"Three minutes. Okay, got it."

* * *

Not one minute later, Peter was pretty sure he was nearing at an exit.

He was even more sure when he encountered a guard. Why else would HEL have posted security, if there wasn't a way out nearby?

Almost cheerfully, Peter said, "Behind you!"

The guy whipped around, surprised. Peter shot a web at his mouth, preventing him from shouting out.

Peter shot a web on the ceiling and swung down, letting momentum carry him in a smooth arc down to his quarry.

His feet connected with the man's shoulders, and the HEL agent went flying backwards. He slammed against the wall behind him and ricocheted off, eyes rolling.

Peter quickly dropped to the floor and let the guy's unconscious weight slump forward onto his shoulders, preventing him from hitting the hard floor.

Compared to lifting trucks and pulling ferries back together, handling a human body felt as light as a rag doll. And it was about as awkward. Peter squatted, letting the agent down to the floor as gently as he could manage, even though he was pretty sure the guy didn't deserve as much.

"Okay, you're a bad guy, so. . . web, web, web, aaaaand web for you."

Just to be safe, he webbed the guy's wrists and ankles to the floor. It would dissolve in just a few hours, but hopefully by then both Peter and Tony would be far away from here.

"How many of these guys are there, anyways?" Peter muttered, peering around the corner for any more.

FRIDAY spoke up. "You have got a cloaking system in this suit. D'you want to give that a spin?"

"Cloaking?" Peter's spirits soared. "That's perfect. Yeah."

A weird, squirmy feeling shivered across his skin. He raised his arm and studied it in interest. It looked like the suit was _moving_.

It was hard to tell exactly what happened, but it looked like thousands of tiny little mirrors popped up on the suit's surface to make a solid sheet of shimmery fabric. He raised his arm in interest as he felt the suit moving against his skin.

Within a matter of seconds, it seemed like his arm had completely disappeared.

"That is _awesome_!" Peter said, struggling to keep his voice at a whisper. He moved his hand back and forth, marveling at the way the tiny mirrors kept his arm completely camouflaged.

"Someone's coming," FRIDAY warned in his ear.

Peter quickly snapped back to reality. Flattening himself up against the wall, he turned to see a man coming down the hall. He couldn't keep a huge grin off his face as the guard walked right past him

"This is, like, the perfect surveillance mode," Peter whispered to FRIDAY. "Why isn't this in is _my_ suit?"

"All the prototypes equipped with cloaking had a high percentage of short-circuiting and electrocuting the wearer," FRIDAY responded diligently.

"What?!" Peter yelped out loud. He dropped down to the floor and looked quickly at his hands. "You mean this thing could electrocute me?"

"Past trial runs indicate that you would have to be near or in water for the suit to short-circuit," FRIDAY said.

As if that mattered. "Turn it off!" Peter hissed.

The tiny mirrored panels seemed to swivel into themselves, and the red fabric covering Peter's hands became visible again.

"They're still there, though, right? The cloaking panels?" Peter asked. He could still feel his heart pounding.

"With the cloaking disabled, the chance of electric shock is extremely low."

 _Even still_. Peter shivered.

"Hey!" A voice bellowed from the hallway, and Peter jumped and looked up.

He hadn't realized he had made so much noise. The same guy he had just managed to hide in plain sight from was right in front of him. Only this time, Peter really _was_ in plain sight.

Without hesitating, the agent raised his gun, meeting Peter's eyes through the viewfinder.

"Yikes!" Peter leapt straight up into the air like a cat, flipping himself over just in time to press his hands and feet to the ceiling.

Growling in annoyance, the agent raised his gun higher. At the same time, Peter shot a web, hoping to muzzle the gun like he had with the others.

He was greeted with a horrible, dry whirring.

"Gah!" Peter stared at the webshooter in horror as he realized had used up all his webs. There was nothing left.

"King," the man spoke into his wrist, "I have eyes on the kid. He's out of the garage, repeat, he's escaped from the garage."

 _No!_ The panic surged higher in Peter's throat. If an alert was sounded, he would never get out of here. Without really thinking, Peter let go of the ceiling and dropped straight down on the man.

His heel struck the guy's forehead, and the agent collapsed to the floor beneath him, unconscious.

Peter sucked in a worried breath and sprung to his feet. "My bad," he whispered. Kneeling, he carefully felt the back of the man's head. There wasn't any blood, but he could already feel an egg-sized lump swelling up. He winced. "Ooh – I'm really sorry. That's gonna hurt."

Obviously, he couldn't web this guy up like he had the last one, so instead Peter awkwardly pushed him to one side of the hallway and hoped no one would notice.

It didn't matter. His gaze was fixed on a door he had noticed in the hallway up ahead, and he felt a thrill as he padded quietly up to it.

Air. He could smell fresh air. Mixed with something else, too – a woodsy smell. Pine, maybe? It definitely smelled close enough to the evergreen-colored candles May bought around Christmastime.

Unexpectedly, Peter grinned. If _that_ comparison didn't label him as a city kid, he didn't know what would.

He pushed the door open, straining against the reinforced metal, and stumbled outside.

Darkness greeted him. Peter blinked in surprise – he hadn't realized it was so late.

The Toy Box seemed to be surrounded by woods, and the screech of crickets was almost overwhelming. Actually, it kind of felt like the middle of nowhere. With the insects screeching so loudly, Peter couldn't even hear any road sounds.

He came to the sudden and brilliant realization that he had absolutely no idea what he was supposed to do next.

Tony had said 'get out', so. . . check.

Now what?

"FRIDAY?" he asked softly. "Do you know where we are?"

"Already on it," she replied, as if the AI had read his mind. "Triangulating coordinates now."

Suddenly, Peter became aware of a soft, thumping sound coming from the trees. It was kind of a chuffing noise, like a helicopter, maybe. He frowned and looked up.

There was something in the distance, but it was coming closer. Peter squinted, trying to discern a recognizable shape.

Tiny red lights blinked along the outline of the dark shape, like the guide lights on a helicopter.

Peter's eyes widened. "Is that. . . . Is that a _Helicarrier_?"

"Looks like it, boss," came FRIDAY's voice. "I think I can spot a SHIELD logo."

Peter perked up. Sure enough, in a corner of his vision a rectangle swept into view, and it was a zoomed-in image of the shape in the sky. The image was blurry and shaky, but he could just make out the SHIELD logo printed on the side.

His flash of hope was short-lived as he frowned.

"Uh-oh," Peter said. He spun around and flattened himself up against the side of the building. "Hey, FRIDAY?" he whispered. "I just thought of something. What if these guys are, like, HEL's reinforcements or something?"

"It's possible," FRIDAY responded. She paused. "I can't pick up on any of their radio frequencies from the outside."

Peter was almost tempted to enable the cloaking again, but the idea of getting shocked kept him from even suggesting it. Instead, he pressed himself as close as he could to the concrete side of the building and hoped they wouldn't see him.

Of course, of _course_ , he just _had_ to have red and blue as his suit colors. He might as well have been an American flag flying from the rooftop.

Without really meaning to, Peter started inching himself backwards up the wall, using his fingers and toes. It felt like he was getting away, when really, he was just getting higher and becoming an easier target.

The Helicarrier descended slowly, its powerful turbines swirling dirt and dust into the air. Before it had even touched down, Peter realized there was already a group of people on the ground. He held his breath as he watched them, hoping they wouldn't notice him.

Naturally, he wasn't so lucky. They swarmed straight over to him, so fast and efficiently that Peter thought they must have some kind of tracking device on him. He held completely still, feeling his heart pounding in his chest.

They all held weapons. Guns – big guns.

There seemed to be a leader. She wasn't wearing military-grade armor like the others, but it was clear she was the leader. She strode forward towards the wall until she was so close Peter could see her bright blue eyes.

"Are you Peter Parker?" she asked.

Peter opened his mouth, his first instinct telling him to respond with a 'yes'. But the secondary instinct washed over his brain, and he snapped his mouth closed.

"I'm – Spider-Man?" he said instead. Crap. It wasn't meant to sound so much like a question.

Unexpectedly, she smiled. "Don't worry, Peter. We know who you are." Lowering her gun, she raised a closed fist, and all the surrounding agents lowered their weapons too.

"Who are _you_?" Peter asked. His question extended past the actual woman's name, because as glad as he was to see SHIELD roll up, he wanted to make sure they were the real deal.

The agent slid her gun back into the leather holster on her thigh and glanced back up at him through smoky eyelids. "Maria Hill," she said by way of introduction. "We need you to come with us."

* * *

.

 _A/N: Yaaaay, Hill is finally in this story! I've been planning on having her come into it since the beginning, and I'm really excited the chapter is finally upon us. I've never mentioned it before, but Agent Hill is one of my most favorite characters in the MCU. :D Thank you for reading!_

 _Thanks to cargumentluv, KHARAKI TAKAN, Shadow-wolf48, and AppleSpongeCake for your reviews! I'm so happy you're all enjoying the story!_


	11. Mister Stark

**11**

 _Maria Hill. . . ?_

Wait. Surely it couldn't be. . . _that_ Maria Hill. Right? The same one who had unlocked a part of the Casket?

Peter moved down the wall a step, still gripping the side with his fingers and toes. He squinted at the female agent, willing the lenses to somehow zoom in.

"That's Agent Hill?" he asked FRIDAY, keeping his voice low enough so they couldn't hear him.

"Positive face match," the AI responded.

The agent in question slid her gun back into the holster on her thigh and touched a finger to her earpiece. "We're clear here," she said into it. Making a hand motion to the other gathered agents, she gestured towards the door Peter had just come out of. "Move out. Go. Go!"

The men who had surrounded Peter just a second ago moved for the door. Peter couldn't help watching them through wide eyes; with their combat armor, professional crouched positions, and weapons at the ready, it was like watching an action movie in real life.

"Foxtrot team is in," Agent Hill was saying into her earpiece. She looked up, and her eyes met Peter's through the mask. "I have eyes on the kid."

Peter cleared his throat as she lowered her hand from her earpiece. "So you're – you're SHIELD?" he asked, his voice cracking just slightly.

"We're SHIELD," she confirmed with a little nod. "We're here to help."

 _Well, sure_ , Peter thought, _but_ they _were SHIELD once, too_.

"Mind coming down?" Hill asked.

Peter didn't move – not yet. "Why are you here?"

He realized how the words sounded as soon as he said them, and he awkwardly tried to backtrack. "I mean," he said hastily, "it's great you're here and all, it's just that we're kinda out in the middle of nowhere, and I'm –"

"We picked up a signal from Avengers Tower," Agent Hill said over him. "It seems that JARVIS was picking up on some suspicious activity before he shut himself down, so he sent us a distress call with coordinates leading here."

With that, Peter's reservations vanished. If Mister Stark's right-hand AI trusted these people, then he would, too. Besides, wasn't JARVIS something like 67% Tony's actual personality? Something like that. It sounded right.

Peter released his grip on the wall and dropped, landing with a thump on the grassy ground. When he straightened up, he was somewhat surprised to realize that he was almost the same height as Agent Hill.

Hill's trained eyes flicked over Peter from head to toe, seeming to assess him with a glance. "Are you hurt?" she asked.

Peter felt a twinge in his cheekbone below his bruised eye, but he shook his head. She wouldn't be able to see the injury through the mask, anyway.

If Agent Hill didn't believe his lie, it didn't show on her face. "Good," she said simply. "We need to move." She nodded her head in the direction of the Helicarrier, which had finally settled to the ground. "Walk with me?"

She strode off without waiting for a response. Startled, Peter broke into a trot to catch up.

"The Circuit was made up of eight individuals," Agent Hill said as she walked. "Of those, there were three top dogs – Yuri Novikov, Jason King, and Sean Marcus." She glanced sidelong at him. "Any of those sound familiar?"

"Yeah," Peter said, slightly relieved to have some information to offer. "Jason King. He's kinda the main guy." The name Marcus might have sounded familiar, but Peter wasn't certain enough to mention it.

Agent Hill nodded, seeming to mentally file the information before she continued. "We lost contact with the Circuit after the fall of SHIELD, and we haven't had a trace of them since." She turned her head, and she seemed to scrutinize his face straight through the mask. "That is, until now. What can you tell us?"

Peter gave a quick glance over his shoulder, keeping half an eye on the Toy Box. "Uuuh. . . ."

Sensing his confusion, Hill elaborated. "Where did they get their equipment? Are they working alone, or are they working for someone?"

That Peter could answer. "For someone. They said they had been hired, like, really soon after SHIELD fell."

She nodded again. "How many agents?"

Peter was getting antsy. He looked over his shoulder again. The door through which he had left the Toy Box was getting much farther away, and he slowed to a stop. "Shouldn't we be going back in?"

Agent Hill stopped too, and turned to face him. "Peter. How many agents are we dealing with?" she asked again, her voice firm.

"Um, I saw at least five guys," Peter said, distracted. "But there's more of them, I think. A lot more."

"Okay." Agent Hill glanced in the opposite direction at the Helicarrier, and Peter reluctantly followed her gaze. A line of agents were streaming towards them.

Peter turned back to Hill. "I think I can remember where Mister Stark is," he said quickly, eagerly. "I can take you guys straight to him."

"That's not going to be necessary," Hill said. She looked back to the agents coming toward them and gestured to one.

"Need an escort here," she said.

 _What?_ Peter stopped in his tracks. _Escort?_

The agent that Hill had called, a young male agent, strode over to them.

"Get him to the Carrier, have medical look him over," Hill ordered.

"What? Wait," Peter protested, taking a step back. "I'm not going back in? What about Mister Stark?"

Agent Hill turned to face him, keeping her light blue eyes locked on his. "Peter, we have agents going in," she said firmly. "Trained agents. They know how to handle this sort of thing."

"Well –" Peter gestured helplessly with his hands. "Shouldn't – shouldn't I do something?"

The earpiece buzzed slightly in Hill's ear; Peter realized that with his heightened senses, he could actually hear it.

Keeping her eyes trained on Peter, Agent Hill raised a hand to the communication device. "Status?"

More faint buzzing.

Peter looked away, biting his lip. He was simultaneously antsy and exhausted; going to the Helicarrier didn't sound like the worst idea, but the thought of leaving Tony made him hesitate.

"Copy," Agent Hill said. "Get to the Carrier," she said, and it took Peter a second to realize she was talking to him again. Her voice softened just slightly. "You can't help any more right now."

Peter stayed silent. She was probably right, but. . . still.

"Make sure he gets to Medical," Agent Hill said to the other agent, her parting comment as she turned to leave. Her voice left no room for argument.

Peter watched her stride away, wondering if he should start running after her.

"Garage D. I'm on my way," Hill was saying into her earpiece. She glanced to the side, and despite the distance between them now, Peter caught three more words:

"Send in Fury."

* * *

 _Now the time is here_

 _For Iron Man to spread fear_

 _Vengeance from the grave_

 _Kills the people he once saved_

Tony nodded his head along to the beat of the song, playing air guitar with his fingers.

Over the sound of the music, the door to the garage audibly crashed open. Reluctantly, Tony opened his eyes.

King stood in the doorway.

Tony lowered his arms. "Well, if it isn't everyone's favorite monarch."

It only took a second for King to take in the situation; the blown camera, the unconscious agents on the floor, Peter's absence. In one move he whisked his gun from his belt and aimed it at Tony with both hands.

Tony instantly raised his palms. "No tricks. Promise."

King didn't move the weapon from Tony's face. "Where's the kid?" he asked, his voice dangerously low.

Tony shrugged, feigning innocence. "You tell me."

King's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "What made you stick around?"

"Fun, mostly," Tony said. After a moment, he added, "Oh, and also, someone had to stick behind to jam your communications."

Following Tony's eyes, King looked over at the security camera. It hung halfway out of the wall, exposing a river of electrical lines and wiring behind it. Balancing delicately in the hole in the wall was an Apple watch, its face opened up to connect to bright red and blue wires.

"How the hell. . . ."

"It was no big deal," Tony said with a shrug. "Cut the audio line from the security camera, hooked it up to my watch." He sniffed. "The watch has a few of my own. . . modifications built in. It found the channel back to your main board, picked up on the PA frequency, sent my audio out from there. Simple. It was cake." Almost as an afterthought, he said, "Actually, the hardest part was picking the song." He pointed up at the ceiling as _Iron Man_ continued to blare over the loudspeakers. "What d'you think, too on-the-nose?"

Growling slightly under his breath, King swung his arm out and aimed at the camera.

"Uh, I wouldn't do that," Tony said, raising his voice. "Or we're gonna miss one of the best outros you've ever heard."

"I'll take my chances," King said.

He fired.

The jerry-rigged camera blew to pieces, sending showers of sparks down to the floor and abruptly cutting off the song.

A jolt went though Tony at the sound of the gunshot, and he blinked his eyes shut for a moment.

Immediately, the radio on King's wrist came to life. Voices crackled through the static, one after another.

King raised his wrist and spoke into it. "Find the kid and get him back here. Now. I don't care what you have to do."

Tony watched as the other man clicked the radio off. "Gosh, you just have _such_ a way with people," he said.

"I'm done asking politely," King said. "We have a job here."

"Yeah, _about_ that." Tony sniffed and tilted his head to one side.

The ex-SHIELD agent raised one eyebrow. "Is there a problem?"

"Something's not adding up," Tony said. "You were _hired_ into this? You hardly need money, you're –" he gestured at the other man, "the best hackers on the planet. Hack a bank and you'd all be set for life. You know how to cover your tracks. Why take _this_ job?"

"What's it matter?"

Tony continued, undaunted. "But if it's not about money, then it's personal. So." He paused and narrowed his eyes at King. "Which Avenger pissed you off?"

"You haven't answered my question," King said. "What's it matter to you?"

"Common curiosity," Tony said. "Given that I'm not a cat, there should be no problem." He nodded his head up. "Come on, spit it out. Just one name. I gotta know."

"Actually," King said, "you _don't_."

His radio crackled to life. "King, we have visual on a Helicarrier inbound. Repeat, there is a SHIELD Helicarrier inbound."

Tony inwardly sighed. _Shit._

 _And we were getting along so well, too._

King's furious white-blue eyes locked on Tony, and for a split-second, Tony knew _exactly_ what it felt like to be a gazelle in the gaze of a lion.

"You contacted SHIELD."

Tony quickly raised his hands. "Didn't. I swear. Scout's honor."

King heaved a sigh. "This could have been so much easier, Stark," he murmured. "For everyone involved."

He raised his gun and fired.

Hot-white pain tore through Tony's abdomen. He let out a hoarse shout of pain and doubled over, both hands grabbing at the wound.

Blood seeped through his fingers. Letting out a strangled grunt, Tony struggled down to the floor on his knees.

"We knew you would get help," King said. "You shouldn't have chosen SHIELD."

"You –" Tony grimaced against the pain, "– really know how to hold a grudge, don't you?"

King clicked the empty round out of his gun, and the shell clattered to the floor. "Send my love to Fury," he said. "Because next time, we're not going to underestimate you, Stark. You or SHIELD."

He strode out of the room, his boots sending echoes around the room.

Tony squeezed his eyes shut. He could feel his own heartbeat in his ears, reminding him of every second he was losing.

 _Focus up. You've been shot, remember?_

He pried open his eyes. Fingers trembling slightly, he pulled up the hem of his shirt.

The fabric came away slowly, sticky with blood that was already pooling up around the wound.

An audible groan came from Tony's throat, and he stopped. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to pull the rest of the shirt back and assessed the wound.

It was really, _really_ not good.

Already he had been dealing with a bruise the size of a dinner plate blossoming just underneath his ribcage. He had tried to downplay the injury for Peter's sake, but he was almost certain he had a few cracked ribs.

But this. . . yeah, this had only made it a _lot_ worse. Because the bullet had opened up the bruise, and it was ugly.

Tony gritted his teeth and pressed his head up against the wall behind him. He closed his eyes, clenching and unclenching his fists as waves of pain rolled up from his stomach.

 _You'd better get here fast, Fury._

* * *

 _._

 _A/N: Heh... um, whoops. Tony getting shot just sort of... happened. Sorry, Tony. But hey, I'm glad you guys liked Hill! I had a lot of fun writing her interactions with Peter this chapter. :D_

 _Dude, I received so many reviews last time, and I am just so incredibly honored that you all took time to give me your thoughts! Dozens of hugs. You made me happy._

 _So without further ado, thank you to (takes a deep breath) Guest Bob, AppleSpongeCake, Shadow-wolf48, scifinerd4lyfe, KHARAKI TAKAN, Guest, curry-llama, carajiggirl, and (last but certainly not least), cargumentluv!_


	12. HEL Hath No Fury

**12**

He strode for the Toy Box, his trench coat catching the wind of the Helicarrier turbines. He walked stiff-shouldered, with his head held high, his heavy boots leaving prints in the dirt.

Nick Fury didn't particularly care. The Circuit knew SHIELD was here, and SHIELD they were going to get.

He could see Hill at the entrance of the Toy Box, gun in hand, holding the door slightly ajar with one heel. She looked over as he strode up.

"How many?" he asked as greeting.

"Five at a minimum," she replied. "Likely more." They had to raise their voices slightly over the Helicarrier engines holding the craft at a low hover.

"Foxtrot team?"

"Already inside. They haven't picked up on anything yet. Seems clear."

Fury nodded. "And Stark?"

"We have a positive heat signature in Garage D."

Fury reached for the gun in his holster and checked the clip. "Then let's move, Miz Hill."

They swept into the building, Hill taking point. Fury fell into quick step behind her, glancing down every hallway as they passed.

It took only a few minutes until they reached the door marked _Garage D_. It was a normal door, unlike the multiple hangar doors like the others they had passed, but there were two locks in place above the handle.

Fury met eyes with Hill and gave her a nod.

She nodded back and exhaled slowly, preparing herself. Whirling around, she kicked the door's handle with her heel, and the door flung open. She and Fury swept into the room at the same time, both guns raised.

They were met with a silent room. Simultaneously, Hill's and Fury's eyes fell on Tony, who was lying on the floor propped up on one elbow.

"I surrender," Tony said, sounding tired.

Fury lowered his gun. "Room clear?" he asked as a final precaution.

"Just them." Tony vaguely gestured to the unconscious guards that Peter had taken down and pushed to the side of the door. "But they've been. . . extraordinarily quiet roommates."

While Hill bent to inspect the fallen agents, Fury's gaze landed on Tony's wound.

"Shoot," he muttered under his breath. Sliding his gun back into the holster on his belt, he strode forward and knelt to the ground beside Tony.

The millionaire pulled his hands away from the wound with effort. "You have some very disgruntled employees, Director," he grunted.

Fury stopped, his expression unreadable. "This was the Circuit?"

Tony nodded, closing his eyes against a wave of pain. "Actually, they go by HEL now," he said after a moment. He shook his head and gave a partial eye-roll. "What were they, an angsty teenage boy-band?"

"HEL?"

"Hacker's. . . ." Tony spun one hand in the air, searching for words. "Effect on Life, or something. I don't know. I didn't really care."

Fury pulled out a bandage from his belt. "I'm expecting a full debrief _later_ ," he said with emphasis. "So you'd better stay alive til then."

Tony's gaze bore into the ceiling, and he clenched his jaw. "Yeah," he muttered, "I've got some questions myself."

Fury held up the bandage, a palm-sized patch of rubbery white material, for Tony to see. "Supposed to act like living tissue – second skin, or something like that. Some of Doctor Cho's latest work."

Tony nodded in reply, recalling the doctor who had worked in the Avengers lab just before the Ultron incident.

 _Ultron. My fault,_ his memory taunted him. He felt a twinge of guilt. Grimacing silently, he rested his head against the floor as Fury pressed the bandage over the wound.

A prickling sensation, like a thousand tiny pinpricks, spread over Tony's skin. Letting out a grunt of discomfort, he raised his head.

The rubbery material of the bandage had acted like a sponge, soaking up the blood around the bullet hole while sealing up the wound itself. Tony flicked up his eyebrows, impressed. "Well, Cho knew what she was doing."

"Sure did." Fury nodded to the bandage. "That's got a dose of painkillers built in. Supposed to release straight into the bloodstream."

Tony grimaced. "Which I'm sure I'll feel _any_ moment now."

"Give it a minute."

"Nick?" came Hill's voice. Fury turned around.

She straightened up and gestured to the two unconscious men. "It's Morrow. And Adley."

Tony looked from Fury's face to Hill's, registering their somewhat-shocked expressions. "Friends of yours?"

"Call them former employees," Fury said without turning around. He shook his head. "Looks like King got all the boys with him," he muttered.

"Yeah, well. Grass always looks greener on the rebellious side." Tony tried to pull their attention away from the agents. "So what now, you got an escape plan?"

Fury's attention moved back to him. "Do we have an escape plan," he repeated in a scoff. "We're SHIELD. We _invented_ escape plans."

Static suddenly crackled from a radio on Hill's shoulder. _"Western edge clear. No sign of the Circuit yet."_

"Copy," she said into it. She glanced over. "Nick, this might be our window."

"Then we'd better get moving." Fury looked at Tony, his eye tracing over him. "Think you can stand?"

Tony gave a curt upward nod. If he hadn't felt the effect of the painkillers by now, there was no point in waiting.

Bracing Tony's arm over his shoulder, Fury helped Tony to his feet. The man gave a sharp gasp of pain as he stood, his free hand gripping onto a nearby table until his knuckles turned white.

"You alright?" Fury asked. He didn't move out from Tony's arm.

"Yeah. Yeah. Fine," he said, sounding slightly breathless.

Fury nodded to Hill. "Let's move."

The group moved out of the garage, Hill leading the way.

Tony winced as the movement jarred the pain in his stomach. "By-the-by," he said, "you happen to meet a small-ish agent coming out of here? 'Bout. . . yay-high, prepubescent voice, possibly clad in some ridiculous red suit?"

Hill answered him. "Peter's outside. He's in the Helicarrier."

Before Tony could answer, a high-pitched whine, like microphone feedback, suddenly squealed across the ceiling. Startled, they all stopped short, covering their ears with their hands.

"Stark?" Fury shouted over the noise.

"Yeah, not good," Tony said back.

The squeal cut off, and was replaced by a man's voice. "Well, well, well!" The voice was so loud it echoed off the walls. "If it isn't our good Director Nick Fury himself. Come to pay your wayward sons a visit?"

Hill's grip tightened on her gun as she glanced over at Fury. "That's King."

Fury raised a hand to his own earpiece. "Get me the source of that transmission!" he barked into it. "Find him."

Nothing but static buzzed in his ear. He swore and lowered his arm. "Coms are out."

"That would be our doing," the voice said.

Fury tensed. "They have eyes on us," he said.

"And ears, Director Fury. We've been listening to your chatter for a while now. And from the sounds of it, SHIELD hasn't changed at all."

"King, this is insane," Fury said. "Drop the whole Wizard of Oz act and let's talk this through."

King's voice hardened. "We're not your _toys_ anymore, Fury. We don't follow your orders."

"What do you want?" Fury asked slowly.

"Stark can tell you all about that," King answered easily, "if he makes it."

Tony braced himself up against the wall with his free hand and gritted his teeth.

"We'll see you again, Fury," King said. "Face-to-face – sometime soon. But not here. You caught us off guard this time, but next time, _we'll_ be the ones to pick the battleground.

"And as for _you_ –" The voice paused. "We'll find you. We know how."

With that, the voice stopped and the PA system shut off, leaving behind an eerie silence.

Fury tried his earpiece again, his voice sounding strained. "Report. Did you get the source of that transmission?"

Finally, the radio crackled back. "No luck, sir. The transmission was encrypted."

Fury shook his head, frustrated. "Keep trying!" he barked. "I want the Circuit found and in SHIELD custody before the sun's up."

Tony's gaze bore straight ahead. "Really think it'll be that easy?" he asked.

Fury clicked the com off. "I believe in dreaming big," he replied sarcastically.

Suddenly, Hill's radio squealed to life. "Agent Hill!" The voice sounded panicked. "We have detected multiple explosives detected in the Toy Box. Repeat, there are multiple bombs active and ready to detonate."

Hill met Fury's eyes.

"Extract," he said.

At the command, Hill swiftly reached for her radio and began issuing orders. "All agents, clear out. Base has been tagged. Repeat, base has been tagged, it's about to blow."

* * *

Peter actually almost made it into the Helicarrier.

The agent that he had been assigned to was leading him up the ramp of the Helicarrier. From what Peter could already see, the inside of the Helicarrier looked like a car dealership had met NASA. Everything was black, shiny, and smelled like new leather. Cool, conditioned air poured from the opening, offering relief from the heat of outside.

For a moment, Peter resigned himself to the fact he was going inside; he was this close anyway, and SHIELD had everything under control.

And then the agent's radio came to life, and the voices came through.

SHIELD definitely did _not_ have everything under control.

" _All agents, we have lost heat sigs on Alpha and Beta. Repeat, we have lost heat signatures."_

" _Foxtrot team, report. We have lost your signals."_

" _Our systems are being hacked!"_

The hairs on the back of Peter's neck stood up, and he stopped in his tracks. This had to be HEL. SHIELD might not know what they were dealing with – these guys had hacked into Avengers Tower. Who knew what else they could do?

Peter twisted around. There was a bit of a distance now between him and the Toy Box, but he could still see the exit door where he had come out. His odds weren't great, but he _was_ fast. . . .

"FRIDAY?" Peter asked in a whisper.

She seemed to read his thoughts, and bright blue lines appeared on the mask's lenses, measuring the ground leading up to the door. "We are approximately ninety-two point seven meters away from the Toy Box."

 _Ninety-two meters._ Peter did a quick mental calculation. _That's only, like, a hundred yards._

He could make a hundred yards. It would be a short sprint, tops. That wasn't even the full length of a football field.

"Mister Parker?" he suddenly heard a voice say. Startled out of his thoughts, he whipped back around, and he realized that the agent was gesturing with one hand to the ramp leading up to the Helicarrier.

Peter met the agent's eyes, and he swallowed tightly. This might be harder than he thought.

The agent's eyebrows furrowed at Peter's hesitation. "Mister Parker?" he prompted again.

In a split-second, Peter made up his mind. Whether SHIELD approved or not, he had to find Mister Stark. He clenched his hands into fists, strengthening his resolve.

"I'm really sorry," he said.

* * *

"Left. Left!" Hill said. She tailed Tony and Fury now, who were moving down the hallways as fast as Tony's injury would allow.

A thunderous boom echoed somewhere nearby, shaking the ground beneath their feet like an earthquake.

As Tony and Fury turned the corner, they nearly ran head-first into Peter, who was bolting in the opposite direction.

"Whoa!" Peter shouted, stumbling backwards.

Fury's and Hill's reactions were instant; they both had their guns cocked and loaded in their hands aiming at Peter's head in seconds.

"Whoa whoa whoa hey, it's just me, it's just me!" Peter said all in one breath, raising his hands. He quickly grabbed the Spider-Man mask and pulled it off, revealing his flustered, terrified-looking face.

Tony's mouth opened. "Peter?!" he asked, and the word came out like a shout.

The kid flinched but didn't break eye contact, too wide-eyed to blink.

Terror flooded through Tony, making his voice was sharper than he intended. " _What_ are you doing here?"

Peter's lips moved silently for a moment before he found his voice again. "I - I - I had to find you," he stuttered dumbly.

"No," Tony said over him, "no, you didn't."

Peter's voice raised marginally. "They said there were bombs."

"That's exactly why I didn't want you _here_!" Tony said sharply.

Hill lowered her gun and holstered it. "Tony, it doesn't matter. We need to move."

Peter seemed to notice Hill for the first time. "Oh, umm –" He turned to address her. "I'm really sorry, but um, I kind of knocked out some of your agents? On – on my way back."

Hill exchanged a glance with Fury.

"Kid," Tony said to get his attention back on him, " _run_. However you got back in, get back out. Now. We're only going to slow you down."

Peter's eyes flicked down to Tony's stomach and his blood-stained shirt, and his mouth opened in shock. "Whoa, what happened? Did you get shot?"

"Pete!" Tony snapped. "Go!"

Before Peter could move, something must have buzzed in his brain, because his eyes suddenly widened and his pupils dilated. "Oh, God," he said hoarsely. "Get _down –_!"

The warning didn't come soon enough. Another bomb exploded, this time much closer, and the building around them erupted into rubble.

Tony was flung forward; his head hit the floor, and his world went black.

* * *

 _._

 _A/N: I know, I know, it's another major another cliffhanger, I'm so sorry! To make up for this one, the next chapter will NOT leave off on a cliffhanger. I pinkie-promise, I really do. I don't like leaving you guys in the dark._

 _Thank you all so much for your response last chapter! I loved reading your reviews, and it looks like we got a few new people following this story too. *Waves at the new folks* Welcome, welcome!_

 _Okay, so I was recommended the video 'I Am Iron Man' by Guest Bob. I actually have watched it before, and I adore it. (It is incredibly heart-jerking, though – watch at your own risk!) My most favorite Marvel song-edit of them all, though, is called "Marvel Cinematic Universe - Rise Up", which is also done by Top Screen. It's just flawless. I love it to death. Give it a watch and let me know what you think!_

 _On to the review thanks! Thank you to cargumentluv, mimicow10, LoonyLovegood1981, Guest, KHARAKI TAKAN, Shadow-wolf78, Toshiro with love, curry-llama, Guest Bob, and seireidoragon!_


	13. A Stark Contrast

**13**

It was the ringing in his ears that woke Peter up.

His lungs heaved and he coughed, making his chest ache. His whole body felt numb.

His eyes fluttered open. He tried to make sense of what his eyes were seeing, but it was too much. His brain was on fire – sensory overload. Everything was too much, too loud, too bright. Exhaustion tugged at his brain, urging him to fall back unconscious, but he fought it. He had to move.

Feeling weak and trembly, he tried to push himself up to a sitting position.

Pain streaked up one of his arms. "Gah!" he gasped, and the sound came muted in his ears.

This was reminding him _way_ too much of the Vulture incident on Coney Island, and Peter was not liking the déja vu.

Blinking dust from his eyes, Peter looked around. He was surrounded by rubble, and it seemed like everything was on fire. There were three other shapes in the dust around him. _Agent Hill. . . Nick Fury. . . Mister Stark._

His sore arms trembled, threatening to collapse underneath him, but he didn't move yet. He had just caught sight of something in the distance, and he squinted into the dark.

Lights. There were lights swarming toward them out of the dark. _Good guys_? He hoped so. If this was HEL, he was toast. They were _all_ toast.

With that thought, Peter promptly passed out.

* * *

Tony woke up with a headache.

Not just a simple, run-of-the-mill, take-two-aspirin-and-it's-gone type of deal, either. This was a full-blown migraine. If this was a hangover, last night had better have been worth it.

It took him a minute to remember. _The Toy Box – HEL – Fury – the explosion. . ._. _Peter_.

Tony pried his eyes open.

There was a figure at his feet. Tony blinked, and the person standing at the end of the bed slowly came into focus.

Suit, tie, crossed arms. . . frown.

 _Happy_.

"'The Tower will be fine' my _ass_ ," Happy said, slowly enunciating each word with meaning.

Tony closed his eyes and swallowed with effort. "Where's the – where's the kid?"

"Peter?" Happy sounded puzzled. "He's fine. They told me he was on his way here. Why?"

Tony visibly relaxed, letting out a relieved sigh as he leaned back up against the pillows. "'They?'" he repeated after a moment.

"Yeah, your new SHIELD buddies." Happy's voice regained its usual, somewhat annoyed tone. "You're in their facility. I had to go through seven different levels of security before they'd even let me into the lobby."

"Hap, I didn't know you cared," Tony grunted.

"Of course you knew," Happy snapped. "I could have had my contacts in the city there with you, in the Tower, and none of this mess would have happened. Now I'm here in some SHIELD facility, of all places, at three A.M. because someone shot my boss. I have better ways of spending my Fridays, you know."

"A.M., that's, that's. . . ." Tony closed his eyes again, trying to concentrate. "That's. . . morning, right?"

"Yes, Tony. Three o'clock A.M. I got out of bed for this." Despite his words, Happy's tone softened the slightest, taking pity on him. "How you holding up?"

Tony grunted and raised a hand to rub his eyes.

Something moved with his arm. Frowning, Tony pulled his hand away and turned it over. There was an IV line in the back of his hand, feeding a clear fluid into his veins.

Tony's eyes traced the line all the way to a dripping IV bag, suspended above his head beside his bed.

 _Right. Hospital._

He glanced down to himself. His blood-soaked graphic tee and dress pants had been swapped for a soft gray gown. There was a palm-sized lump on his abdomen beneath the gown – presumably a pad of gauze covering the hole King's bullet had left behind.

"You're looking better," came a familiar voice.

Tony looked up to see Nick Fury walking into the room. The Director was just as bruised and bandaged as Tony, but he wore a casual smile and walked with his usual swagger.

"There'd better be something protective under this gown," Tony said as greeting.

Fury chuckled as he walked in. "You were a bit of a mess, coming in here," he said. "They've fixed you up pretty good." He nodded at the gauze on Tony's abdomen. "They took X-rays. Bullet's still in there, but they wanted to hold off on the surgery until you were stabilized."

Tony nodded once. It wasn't as if he wasn't used to dealing with foreign metal hovering close to his major organs. He glanced over to Happy. "You sticking around?"

"No, I'm heading back. I have to go back to the Tower to start to try cleaning up the mess you made," Happy said. He gave a long, tired sigh, and for a moment, Tony actually felt a little bad.

"Thank you for coming, Mr. Hogan." Fury offered his hand to shake.

Happy took it, if somewhat reluctantly. "Yeah, well, maybe _next time_ " – he looked pointedly at Tony and spoke with emphasis – "my boss will actually pay attention to his _head of security_ and everyone can avoid a headache."

"Love you too, Hap," Tony called after him as he left.

"You owe me three hours of sleep," Happy said back. He left, pulling the frosted glass door shut behind him.

In the silence, Tony met Fury's eyes. "How's Peter?" was his first question.

"In one piece," Fury said quietly. "Actually, I think Mr. Parker fared the best out of all of us. We took a jet to get you here faster, but Peter had to take the longer trip home. Medical's with him on the Helicarrier as we speak."

Tony looked away, looking deep in thought. "All of us in the explosion, right, and yet – _I'm_ the one in the hospital bed." It wasn't exactly a question, but it needed an answer nonetheless.

"Blunt head trauma," Fury said. He shrugged one shoulder. "You hit your head. Blood loss didn't help, either. You'll have a nasty bump, but. . . ." He looked down at his scorched clothes and bandaged hand. "Let's just say you got off no worse than the rest of us."

Gritting his teeth, Tony sat up in the bed.

Pain flashed across his eyes like a heartbeat. He stopped with a tight gasp, squeezing his eyes shut against the rhythmic pounding that went through his sore skull. When the pain subsided, Tony swung his legs off the edge of the bed.

"Whoa now, the doctors haven't cleared you to get out of bed yet," Fury said, raising one hand.

"Don't care." Tony reached for the PCA pump beside his bed and thumbed the controls, upping his dose of painkillers. He waited for a moment, then nodded as he felt the drugs kick in. "Yeah. That's better."

He hopped up from the bed and grabbed the pole holding his IV bag. Wincing slightly, he made his way over to the wall-sized window and looked out the half-closed blinds.

It was dark outside. The sky was inky-blue, the only light coming from traffic lights and nearby buildings. Surprisingly, it seemed that they were back in New York, though Tony wasn't exactly sure where SHIELD had stored this super-secret hospital. Typical SHIELD. Hiding in plain sight, and being smug about it.

"How did this happen?" Tony stared straight ahead, his gaze boring into nothing in particular. "The explosion, the bombs – how'd this sneak up on you?"

Fury heaved a sigh as he sat down in a chair. "The Circuit were SHIELD's top hackers, once. Best of the best."

"Yeah, skip the introductions. How'd you lose track of them after the fall of SHIELD?" Tony's arms were crossed, his back stiff.

Fury's head jerked up to look at him. "Stark, you got any idea how just how _big_ SHIELD was?"

Tony's voice held a note of impatience. "It's been two years, Nick. You're losing that excuse."

"We ran underneath the whole planet. It's a little hard to reach these kinds of folks through _e-mail_ ," Fury said, a note of testiness coming into his voice.

Tony sighed and rubbed his temples. "Okay, whatever, doesn't matter now – point is, where are they now?"

"After they trashed your Toy Box, our scanners went dark." Fury propped his elbows on his knees. "Long enough for them to get away. We don't have a location, or even a direction. All our scanners are searching for a blip, but we haven't got anything so far."

"But you knew them," Tony said, jerking his chin up at Fury. "Word on the street is, they used to be your closest groupies. Where would they go after terrorizing a civilian?"

Fury gave him a look. "You're hardly a civilian."

"No, I'm an _asset_ ," Tony snapped suddenly. "I own weapons. I own programs – I own suits. Some of which are capable of lethal destruction."

Fury stood up from the chair. "And what _weapon_ did the Circuit want?" he asked, his voice intensifying. He walked closer. "Tony, SHIELD hasn't been in contact with these people for a very long time. And that's why I would very much like to know why they decided to come out of the shadows only now and do what they did. What did the Circuit _want_?"

Tony's gaze didn't move from the window. "To take down an Avenger," he said in a mutter so low Fury almost missed it.

Something sparked in Fury's one good eye. "The Casket?"

Tony jerked his head upward in a nod.

"Oh, no," Fury said softly, realization coming over his face.

"Yeah." Tony ran a hand over his mouth, his movements quick, jerky. "And you know what, Nick? I found out the _darnedest_ thing."

"Stark," Fury said, his voice like a warning.

"You, big guy," Tony said, angling his body toward the other man. His dark brown eyes blazed. "Turns out, the Casket has _your_ thumbprint, on _your_ lock, leaving one-fourth of the door wide open.

"And actually, you know what's _weirder_ , _Hill's_ print was there too. Right beside yours. How about that."

"It isn't what you think," Fury said, raising a hand.

"Not what I think?" Tony said back, louder. "Okay, tell me what it is, then."

Fury raised his voice. "It was because SHIELD fell that Maria and I made it a priority to get our portions of the Casket unlocked." He lowered his voice. "SHIELD fell to the ground like a house of cards. Loyalties were all over the place. Suddenly, HYDRA was more powerful than we ever anticipated, and your program was the only thing we knew could take down an Avenger if the need arose."

Tony worked his jaw. "If the need arose," he repeated.

"Mind control was in HYDRA's possession. We found that out quickly enough with Mr. Barnes. If they could get to any other Avenger?" Fury shook his head. "The world's best defenders could easily be turned into earth's greatest weapons."

Tony scoffed out a breath and shook his head, too wound up to listen to reason.

"D'you ever get the slightest little hint that maybe, just maybe, because I'd locked it away in the deepest levels of my storage, I wasn't planning on using it?"

"If you'd really wanted that thing out of commission, you would have destroyed it a long time ago," Fury said darkly.

"Oh, so this is my fault now?" Tony asked, pressing a hand to his chest.

"Stark, you're the one who made the damn thing," Fury said, impatience coming into his voice.

"And – I – scrapped – it," Tony said with emphasis. "Because that's not what the Avengers _do_. I dumped it down a hole, locked it away, and threw away the key. I guess I just forgot that someone else had a set of keys."

"That's my point, Stark," Fury said with a frustrated sigh. He met Tony's eyes. "You _locked_ it away. You're just as bad as your dad was. Couldn't bring yourself to destroy any of your creations, no matter how dangerous, no matter how deadly, so instead you hoarded them away."

"Hate to break it to you, Nick, but I'm not the one who scanned my print first."

A text suddenly chirped from Fury's phone. He held Tony's eye contact for a moment before reaching for the phone and glancing at it.

Tony's eyes flicked from Fury's face to the phone. "HEL? You got a location?"

"It's your intern," Fury responded. "Helicarrier's touched down. Peter's on his way up." He lowered the phone and pocketed it. "Before I go, was there anything else you wanted to yell at me for?"

Tony looked away. Anger still pricked at his subconscious, but he brushed it off. "Good chat, Director," he said brusquely. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to talk to a teenager with a guilt complex."

* * *

.

 _A/N: Eh? Eh? See, I promised. No major cliffies here. X) Thank you for reading and I hope you liked it!  
_

 _Good news! Our fellow reader KHARAKI TAKAN recommended the edits of Heroes' Fan Productions to me. (Sidenote: I don't think I ever told you, but I like your username. It's bold.) I don't think I had heard of HFP before, but their edits are amazing. My personal favorite is the Loki one, titled "God of Mischief", I believe. Go and give it a watch!_

 _Okay, so. . . apparently. . . we're almost at_ one hundred reviews _on this story. *jaw drops* Whhhhaaat? I can't thank all you readers and reviewers enough. This is the most attention I've ever received on a story, and it's all thanks to you guys._

 _Heaps of thanks to Shadow-wolf78, Guest (#1), Guest Bob, KHARAKI TAKAN, cargumentluv, AppleSpongeCake, Guest (#2), and Iron Man Spider Son for your reviews!_


	14. Introductions, Instructions

**14**

All things considered, Peter _could_ have felt a lot worse.

Somehow, that wasn't very comforting.

According to the SHIELD agents on the Helicarrier, he had broken his collarbone, his nose, three ribs, and his left arm in the explosion. The suit had been burned and torn in a couple of places, leaving tiny electrical threads poking out at the edges, but the cuts and burns on his skin underneath had already healed. Actually, his healing ability had been kicked up several notches, thanks to sleep and IV fluids SHIELD had given him on the ride over. He wasn't even wearing a cast on his arm, which was a bit of a relief.

Peter glanced up. He was standing in an elevator of the SHIELD hospital that Tony had been taken to, waiting impatiently for the elevator to reach Tony's floor. There was a SHIELD agent standing behind him, because of "standard protocol." Of course.

It had taken Peter fifteen long minutes to convince the agents on the Helicarrier that he was fine, he could walk on his own, no he wasn't dizzy, his head felt fine.

He just had to see Tony.

 _Room 506. Fifth floor – take a left out the elevator._

Peter repeated the directions they had given him in his head, absentmindedly tapping one finger against his arm.

The elevator gave a soft automated ping, and Peter looked up to see the silvery doors sliding smoothly open. _Finally!_ He went left, only vaguely aware of the SHIELD agent trailing a few paces behind.

Agent Hill was standing outside Room 506.

"Oh." Peter abruptly stopped, his shoes squeaking against the tile. "Uh, hey."

She glanced over at him. There was a dark red bruise trailing down the right side of her jaw and a laceration along her cheekbone, both evidence of the explosion. To Peter's surprise, she smiled. "Peter."

He gave an awkward, closed-mouth smile, absentmindedly fiddling with one of his webshooters.

Agent Hill tilted her head up at him. "How you holding up?"

Peter was tired, he ached all over, and he wanted to go home.

"I'm good," he heard himself say.

"Hm." Hill gave him a half-grin. "Heard that one before."

Peter pointed to the door she stood beside. "That's, um –" He gestured to the door. Even though the door was glass, it was frosted, and he couldn't see anything inside. "Is Mister Stark in there?"

"Tony's okay," Hill said, answering the question Peter hadn't asked. She glanced over her shoulder at the door as if she could see straight through it. "Woke up about a half hour ago. Nick's in with him right now."

It took Peter a second to catch the reference. _Nick_. As in, Nick Fury. _Director_ Nick Fury. Head of SHIELD. The familiarity of the name made him study Hill a little closer.

"So you're his, uh. . . ." Peter gestured to her, trying to think of the right word. The only term coming to his mind was 'second-in-command', but somehow that didn't seem right.

"Trusted employee," Hill finished for him, giving a wry smile.

Peter felt himself relax a little, and he smiled back.

Suddenly, the door opened, and Nick Fury stepped out into the hallway. Without meaning to, Peter automatically took a step back.

Fury glanced at him. "Mister Parker," he said. "You're looking better than the rest of us already."

"Hey, man," Peter said, his voice squeaking.

"We didn't get the chance to formally meet." The Director offered his hand. "Nick Fury."

It was one thing to _see_ a person in a dark hallway in a building that was about to explode, but it was another to officially _meet_ them. Because face-to-face with the head of SHIELD, Peter now realized that Fury seemed much, _much_ taller in person.

"S-sir," he finally managed. He quickly took Fury's hand and shook it, trying in vain to remember what May had told him about what made a good handshake. "Hey. Um, P-Peter. Parker."

"The Spider-Man, right?" Fury said. When Peter looked surprised, he continued, "Oh, you're a hard one to ignore. You've made the news a couple times. Popped up on our radar more than once."

"R-really? Well, um. . . thank you, it's just, I never thought I would –" Peter gestured to him. "Ever. . . meet you. Wow."

Fury gave him a good-natured smirk. "Take it all in, kid," he said. "The eyepatch, the cool leather jacket –"

"The abounding humility," Hill added wryly.

Peter swallowed and spoke quickly before he lost his nerve. "So, how – how's Tony?"

"Banged up," Fury said. He shrugged one shoulder. "No worse off than the rest of us. Already sick of being cooped up here."

"We've only been here two hours," Hill said, sounding partly amused.

Fury raised an eyebrow, as if saying, _I know_. He paused and addressed Peter. "He wants to see you."

* * *

To Peter's surprise, Tony was standing up, right beside the bed he probably should have been lying down in. He was focusing on a phone in his hand, but as Peter walked in, he glanced up.

Peter couldn't help but wince. Tony looked awful. A dark purple bruise ringed his right eye, and tiny pieces of white medical tape had been affixed over various cuts on his face.

"Been worse," Tony said as a greeting, noting Peter's expression. He flipped the phone around in his hands before setting it facedown on the bedside table.

Peter cleared his throat. "Mister Stark, are you –"

"Ah-ah." Tony held up a finger. "I'm just gonna stop you right there. I'll talk, then you talk. Deal?"

He went on without waiting for an answer. "First." His voice came gentler than usual. "You alright?"

"Um," Peter said, blinking in surprise. "Yeah. Uh, yeah, actually, I'm fine."

"Clearly, since you're just as fresh-faced as ever." Tony sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb. "Okay, question two: What the _hell_ were you thinking?"

Peter started to explain. "I just wanted to –"

Tony raised his finger again. "That was rhetorical. I'm not finished. You were told by at least two people to get out of the Toy Box, go in the Helicarrier, and stay out of the way. Instead, you knocked out a SHIELD agent – which, by the way, good job on that – sneaked away, and broke _back_ into the place you had just _escaped_ from."

Peter looked away, clenching his jaw.

Tony paused for a moment. "Okay, now you're a go. Spill. What was the thought process here?"

"I didn't – I don't know," Peter muttered.

"Eyes up here, kiddo," Tony said, but his voice had lost its sharp parental edge. His dark brown eyes narrowed slightly, studying Peter's face. "What, going into an exploding building seemed seemed like a good idea? At the time?"

"I –" Peter hesitated, knowing exactly how his words were going to sound. "I – heal faster. I mean, if anything happened, you know? I could –"

Tony's eyebrows raised. "Protection? That's what this was?" He tilted his head up to face the ceiling, as if praying for patience, and spoke slowly. "You are not a human shield, Mister Parker."

"I know. I _know_ that, I just –" Peter gritted his teeth and spoke quickly. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

"Alright, tone down the sentiment there. This isn't a Hallmark movie." With a little sigh, Tony sat down on the bed. "Junior, you're going to account for every new gray hair, I swear it," he muttered.

" _Are_ you okay?" Peter asked.

"I'm nursing a bullet and a headache, but other than that, peachy." Tony glanced up, and his eyes met Peter's for a brief second. "Okay, third question –" He nodded at Peter. "Mark 19, that's the one you went with?"

Tony had somewhat swept over the question, but Peter was caught too off-guard to notice. "What, the suit?" He looked down at it. "Well. . . yeah," he said lightly, shrugging. "It seemed cool."

For the first time, Tony grinned. Actually, it was more like a smirk. "Retroreflective microfiber paneling. Good, huh? My idea. Okay, fine, not totally my idea, but I built it, so I get partial credit."

Peter couldn't help smiling a little. "Well, sure, it _was_ cool, until it almost electrocuted me."

"Minor bug," Tony said with a shrug, then winced at the movement. "Just needed a little more calibration, couple more trial runs. . . might even be able to get it running in your suit."

"Uh, no, thanks, I'm good." Peter took a breath. "They got away, right?" he asked.

"What, HEL? Yeah. No trace, all that sort of thing." Tony stared straight ahead for a moment, lost in thought.

Peter nodded. "So. . . what now? What do we do?"

Tony looked back at him. "What do we do?" he repeated. "We lick our wounds. Regroup. Recover. Get you back home safe, and keep looking for them."

Peter elected to ignore the 'get home safe' part. "How do we find them?"

Tony's eyes suddenly narrowed. "You're not thinking what I think you are," he said. "Don't go out looking for these guys, you hear me? This is a SHIELD mess. Leave it to _them_ to clean it up. If one more thing happens to you –"

"I won't. I won't, I swear," Peter said quickly.

Tony studied Peter's face for a long moment, as if he was looking for a lie. "Okay, good," he said finally. He motioned toward the door. "Now get outta here. Fury wants a debrief from you, and you wouldn't want to keep the big guy waiting, especially since you're unbearably polite."

Peter stepped backwards, towards the door. "I'm glad you're okay, Mister Stark," he said.

"Yep." Tony glanced out the window. "Me too."

It wasn't exactly a conventional response. Peter smiled and shook his head slightly as he turned for the door.

"Kid?"

One hand on the doorknob, Peter glanced back.

Tony nodded once. "You did good today."

Peter felt a smile creep over his face. "Yeah?"

"Don't get me wrong, running back in was definitely the _wrong_ thing to do," Tony said.

Looking stung at the sudden criticism, Peter opened his mouth to defend himself. "I didn't –"

"Even _if_ ," Tony continued louder, cutting Peter off, "it probably saved my life."

Slowly, Peter closed his mouth.

"Okay, don't let that get to your head." Tony glanced out the window. "Bye, kid."

* * *

Tony watched Peter go, gently closing the door after himself.

That kid. So gentle with everything.

A pinging sound suddenly came from the bedside table. Letting his gaze linger on the door for a moment, Tony reached behind him to pick up his phone. "JARVIS? You got news for me?"

"Not entirely good news, I'm afraid."

"Well, what else is new," Tony said in a low tone. He finally focused on the phone in his hand, frowning down at the images onscreen.

"The scans you requested from the Toy Box site have been completed."

"What have you got?" He swiped upwards, and the images onscreen jumped into a hologram.

"The Casket has not been found anywhere among the rubble, sir. It appears that HEL has escaped with it."

* * *

.

.

 _A/N: I. Am. Floored. My dudes, we have made it to one hundred reviews. *falls over* I love you all, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter!_

 _*sighs* Weeeeelllll, now for some less-happy news: The day after this chapter is posted, your humble author will be_ _getting four of her teeth ripped out of her unsuspecting skull – uh, ahem, I mean,_ _undergoing a simple wisdom teeth surgery. Gaaaaaah. As you can tell, I'm barely even nervous about it. XP So anyway, if you'd like to, kindly leave a review for me to read while I recover! I would love to read your feedback from the comfort of my bed while I survive on painkillers, Go-Gurt, and mashed potatoes.  
_

 _Thanks to Guest, Shadow-wolf78, KHARAKI TAKAN, Lovely One (Guest), cargumentluv, and seireidoragon for your reviews! And as for all my silent readers out there, I hope you're enjoying the story too! Thank you for the silent support. :)_


	15. Debrief

**15**

 _S.H.I.E.L.D. DEBRIEF - FILE #28-009_

 _9/23/17_

 _Subject: Alias 'Spider-Man', real name_ _ **[REDACTED]**_

 _Debriefer: Agent Maria Hill, Security Level 9_

 _._

 _TIME START - 3:13 A.M._

 _Debriefer: State your name, for the record._

 _Subject: Is that a tape recorder? That's awesome._

 _DBR: Please state your name._

 _S: Oh, right, uh, Peter Parker. Is that flashing?_

 _DBR: It flashes to show it's recording._

 _S: Wait, does – does this mean I'm gonna be on some kind of permanent SHIELD record?_

 _DBR: Your real name will be redacted for lower security clearance levels, but yes. Peter, try to focus. Yesterday afternoon, Tony said he contacted you._

 _S: Yeah. Uh, yeah. He told me to go down this alley, and there was a suit there, and I got in it. Mister Stark started flying it, from the Tower, like remotely, but then. . . . Well, it was a trap._

 _DBR: Fury's Circuit._

 _S: Yeah. Well, technically, I think they're called HEL now._

 _DBR: And HEL was recently hired for their skills._

 _S: That's what they told us, yeah._

 _DBR: But you don't know who who hired them._

 _S: . . ._

 _DBR: Subject just shook his head. Peter, try to keep your answers audible._

 _S: Oh, yeah, it's a recording – sorry._

 _DBR: What we do know is HEL needed you and Stark to unlock the Casket to use on an Avenger. Who was their target? What Avenger did they want to take down?_

 _S: I. . . I really don't know. I'm sorry._

 _DBR: Okay. [pause] Is there anything else you can tell us relating to HEL? Contacts, names, equipment?_

 _S: I – no. I don't think so._

 _DBR: [pause] Okay. Then we're done here. Time – 3:18._

 _S: Hey, so did Mister Stark have to do this too, or –_

 _TIME STOP - 3:18 A.M._

* * *

"How'd he do?" Fury asked.

Hill closed the door behind her. "Fine, given the circumstances." She handed Fury the slim recording device. "He doesn't know much more than we do."

"You believe him?" He accepted the recorder and slid it into his pocket.

"He doesn't have a reason to lie." Hill crossed her arms and glanced at the door she had just left, even though blinds on the inside of the door obscured the glass window. She and Fury stood just outside one of the hospital's private waiting rooms, and Peter still sat inside. "But he is holding something back."

"So long's HEL stays in the shadows, it can wait," Fury said.

"Hopefully." Hill stared straight ahead for a moment. "He's ready for you."

Fury straightened. "Alright," he said. "Let's tell him."

* * *

"We've informed your legal guardian of your whereabouts," Fury said.

Immediately Peter looked up, his eyes wide. "May?" he said. _Uh-oh_. "What'd you tell her?"

"The basics," Fury said, crossing his arms. "You were involved in some bad shit, but you beat up the bad guys and got both yourself and Stark out of there unharmed."

Peter's eyebrows furrowed. "And she was. . . I mean, she was okay? With that?"

Fury raised an eyebrow. "Have you _met_ your aunt? It's safe to say she's. . . _eager_ to hear your voice for herself." He tipped his head up in a nod. "Miz Hill?"

Peter looked over at Hill, who seemed to interpret Fury's silent command instantly. She reached for a phone that was strapped to the belt around her waist, and turned away as she began to dial the number.

Peter glanced back at Fury. Something felt a little off. "Director Fury? Is. . . everything okay?"

"There is. . . one more thing," Fury said after a moment. "I'm afraid you're not going to be going home just yet."

Peter felt home slip a little farther away. "What?"

"You'll be going to our nearest safehouse. Agent Hill will escort you there and remain with you for the duration of –"

"Wait, wait." Peter frowned. "Why?"

Fury paused, meeting Peter's eye. "Because HEL knows who you are," he said, raising his eyebrows. "And if they know your name, they know a lot more about you than you think. Your address, your school, your contacts. . . ."

Peter's eyes widened. _Oh my God – May. Ned._

Fury held up a hand before Peter could ask. "We've already set up safety protocols around your aunt and closest contacts," he said. "It's low-key surveillance, but it's effective. They won't even know our agents are there unless the Circuit tries something they shouldn't."

Peter swallowed with effort. "Does she know?" he asked. "That I'm staying?"

Fury paused. "She knows," he said. "But it's easy to say she's. . . less than thrilled about that."

"May Parker?" Peter could hear Agent Hill say into the phone. "This is Agent Maria Hill, with SHIELD."

He tuned it out. Strangely enough, talking to May was the last thing he felt like doing right now.

To his surprise, Nick Fury reached forward and placed a hand on his shoulder, meeting Peter's eyes with an intense gaze. "Tell her what she needs to hear," he advised.

Peter hesitated. "What should I say?"

Fury smirked and pulled away. "That the other guy came away looking _way_ worse than you did."

Peter grinned back.

"Peter." Hill offered the phone, and he took it.

"Peter? Oh, thank God." May's voice was high, bordering on panicky. "Peter, are you okay?"

"Hey," he said, his voice no higher than a whisper. He cleared his throat, not expecting the lump of emotion to clog his throat. "Hey, May. I'm fine. Yeah, they, uh – they've been great."

"Peter. I don't give a damn about how SHIELD is doing. _You_. Are _you_ okay?"

"I'm fine," Peter repeated, a little louder. "May, I'm okay. Really. I've already healed."

He probably shouldn't have added that last part. "You've already _healed_?" May echoed. "Okay, that's it. You're being homeschooled."

Peter tried again. _New topic_. "Hey, guess what?" He swallowed to clear his throat. "I rode in an Iron Man suit."

Silence.

 _Oh, right. Whoops._ That was maybe a sore subject right now.

"So I heard," May said lightly after a long moment.

"May, this wasn't Mister Stark's fault," Peter said quickly.

"Peter Parker," came May's voice, sounding like a reprimand. "Hon, I love you and everything, but if you mention anything about that man in a positive light right now, I'll – I'll –"

"You'll think of something?" Peter guessed. It was her usual threat.

"I'll think of something," May agreed stiffly. He heard her blow air out her cheeks. "So, you sure you'll be okay staying with those SHIELD people for tonight?" she asked. Peter could almost see her in his mind's eye; head tilted, eyes worried, biting her lip.

He automatically glanced behind him, at Agent Hill. She was speaking in low tones to Fury, arms crossed, a gun strapped to the holster on her hip. If she was the one who was supposed to protect him, he was pretty sure he would be okay.

"Yeah," he said into the phone. "Yeah, I'm sure."

There was a silence for a minute. "Okay, kiddo," May finally sighed. "You know I love you, right?"

"Yeah." A smiled edged onto Peter's lips. "Love you too, May."

He heard May give a little sniff, and she spoke quickly. "Put that agent woman back on the phone, okay?"

Peter complied, handing the cell back over to Agent Hill. Feeling relieved, he sat down on the chair. For the first time since yesterday afternoon, he felt himself relax.

"I understand," Hill was saying into the phone. "I underst – yes, ma'am. I assure you, he will." Another pause. "You're welcome. He will, yes. You have my word. . . . Okay. You too."

Finally, Aunt May seemed satisfied. Hill flipped the phone closed, turning back around to Peter.

He gave her an embarrassed, apologetic smile.

She grinned in response. "You've got one hell of an aunt there, kiddo."

"Yeah, I know." Peter felt a little of the tension in his chest relax. "She – worries."

Hill shrugged one shoulder. "Not always a bad thing. When someone's that protective, you know they love you."

Peter didn't know how to respond to that, so he just shrugged.

"We should get going," Hill said. "You ready to go?"

Peter didn't have anything to bring; all he had was the suit he was wearing. All his clothes had been vaporized, and his backpack was still lying abandoned in some alley somewhere.

"Yeah," he said. "Let's go."

.

* * *

.

 _A/N: I made it through the wisdom teeth surgery! And I am now four teeth lighter. :D Thanks so much for your reviews – they put a smile on my swollen face.  
_

 _Let me just say, the opening to this chapter was ridiculously fun to write. I hope you liked it as much as I did! And, *whispers* I'm really excited to post the next chapter. I don't know exactly why, but I've been re-inspired for this whole story and I'm just having a blast writing it right now. :D_

 _Thanks to cargumentluv (your review actually made me laugh out loud XD), centaurdy jackson007, LooneyLovegood1981, Shadow-wolf78, Elliot Ray, and KHARAKI TAKAN for your reviews!_

* * *

 _I was stunned and saddened to hear that Stan Lee passed away. He was one of those legendary people that you just expect to live on as long as their legacy (or in other words, forever). Rest in peace, Stan Lee. Thank you ever so much for your part in the Marvel universe and thank you, always and forever, for Spider-Man.  
_


	16. The Makeshift Masked Hero

**16**

From the outside, the safehouse looked like a crappy apartment building.

From the inside, it _still_ looked like a crappy apartment building.

As Peter followed Agent Hill into the lobby, he almost felt at home. The lobby had the same weird, moldy-paint smell as his own, and in a strange way, it was comforting.

A few of the lights in the ceiling were bare – okay, maybe this apartment was a _little_ worse than Peter's – and humming ominously as he and Agent Hill went into the elevator. Even the elevator made terrifying creaking noises as it went up, sounding like it was going to fall apart at any moment.

Then they reached the seventh floor.

As the doors slid open, Peter's eyes widened. " _Whoa_."

The flickering yellow light was gone. Instead, the hallway was cool blue and brightly lit; the matte-black walls of the hallway had a hexagonal pattern built into them, making the walls look reinforced. There were a few armed agents pacing the hall, and the weird paint smell had totally vanished.

Agent Hill grinned. "A safehouse needs two things," she said, "a good cover and even better security." She started walking down the hall, gesturing for Peter to follow. "The apartment's this way."

The apartment turned out to be even better. The hexagonal pattern of the walls had been covered with ordinary drywall, but Peter barely noticed. Instead, he was taking in the cool tech – there was a wireless TV, wall-mounted speakers, and a touchscreen power hub built into the wall that seemed to control everything. Everything had a Bluetooth-y glow to it, even the toaster.

Peter didn't even know which device to rave over first. "This is _awesome_ ," he said.

Agent Hill smiled at his excitement. "And guarded," she said. "There will be agents on this floor at all times, and the windows are bulletproof. You'll be safe here."

Peter looked up from the power hub he had started to inspect. "Bulletproof windows? Cool."

"Your room's on the left," Hill continued, indicating the door with a nod of her head. "There are clothes in the closet, food in the kitchen." She paused. "I'll be back in a few hours."

Surprised, Peter turned around. "Wait, you're not staying?"

"I was supposed to," Agent Hill said, frowning down at a phone in her hand. "Plan's changed. Fury needs me back."

Peter forgot how tired he was. "Really? Is it about the hackers? Do you guys have a lead?" _Should I come with you guys?_

She seemed to catch the unasked question. "Just SHIELD business," she said, her voice gentle. "You need to stay here, lie low, and get some rest. You've earned it."

Peter hesitated. "Yeah. Okay," he said after a moment.

With a nod, Agent Hill left, and the door automatically latched locked after her.

Silence fell over the apartment. Suddenly, Peter didn't feel tired. He just felt restless.

He went over to his room and opened the door _._ The room was roughly the same size as his own, large enough to comfortably fit a bed, a dresser, and a desk.

Peter perked up in interest. There was a computer on the desk.

Sliding into the chair, he turned the computer on. There were some things he wanted to check.

The monitor came to life after a moment. Relieved the computer hadn't asked for a security passcode, Peter clicked open the search engine.

An error message came up. _This device not connected to Internet._

"What?" Peter muttered, frowning. He glanced in the corner of the screen to check the signal, but the icon was grayed out. "No Wi-Fi?"

It probably made sense, for a SHIELD safehouse, but it wasn't going to help him. He needed someone else – he needed to make a call, but phones seemed to be the one kind of technology this apartment didn't have.

He glanced down. He was still wearing the suit.

 _Huh_.

* * *

A half hour later, Peter was sitting cross-legged on the chair, the Spider-Man suit laid out on his lap. A USB cord trailed from the computer to the suit's back port.

He had changed into a graphic t-shirt and jeans he had found in the closet. At first he had wondered how SHIELD knew his measurements, but then dismissed it. At this point, he was ready to chalk everything up to 'SHIELD knows everything.' He was pretty sure he was right, too.

Peter scrolled through the digital subsystems on display on the monitor, frowning in concentration.

With no phones in the apartment – and with the suit's mask and its communication technology destroyed – he was going to have to make a call the hard way.

 _Yes!_ Peter found what he needed, and double-clicked something on the screen. He tapped the volume key on the keyboard, turning up the computer's sound just loud enough to be heard, and picked up the neck-end of the suit. "FRIDAY?" he asked quietly into the suit's collar.

FRIDAY's voice responded from the computer's speakers. "Mister Parker."

"Yes! It worked," Peter said, grinning widely.

The computer made a few noises, like the AI was figuring out what he had done. "You've rerouted the Baby Monitor Protocol input to act as a microphone."

"Yeah," Peter said, grinning a little. "Well, the microphone was input only, so. Just needed to find an output to hear _you_."

"Good call," FRIDAY said. "Unfortunately, the Baby Monitor Protocol recording will be compromised as long as you're using it this way."

"That's okay," Peter said quickly. He didn't really want a record showing that he hijacked the suit a little bit.

He adjusted the volume. If the agents outside the apartment heard, he'd be in for it. "Listen, can you call someone for me?"

"You got it," FRIDAY responded. "Who shall I call?"

Peter gave her Ned's phone number. Of course, Karen had the number stored and memorized by now, but with a new suit and new AI, everything had to be done from scratch.

"Dialing now."

Short, intermittent buzzes came from the computer. Peter tapped his foot against the table leg, antsy. _Come on, Ned, pick up_.

Finally, the buzzing was cut off with a click, and Ned's voice came through. "Yeah?"

"Ned!" Peter felt relief flood through him. "It's you!"

"Peter?" Ned sounded groggy and a little confused. "What's wrong?"

"What's – wait, what time is it?" Peter asked, frowning.

"Uh." Ned paused. "Four. . . twenty-six."

"Really?" Peter glanced up, realizing he had a clock in the corner of his screen. He winced. "Sorry, dude. I didn't realize."

"Where are you? My phone didn't recognize this number."

Peter hesitated. It was called a 'safehouse' for a reason. "I can't tell you exactly where. It's a secret SHIELD place. I called you from the suit."

"What? Wait, are you Spider-Man right now?" It took Ned's voice only a second to snap wide-awake. "What's going on? Are you in trouble? Do you need help? Should I –"

Peter cut him off. "Ned. Stop. I'm fine."

"Why are you with SHIELD?" Ned asked.

Peter tried to remember when he had last seen Ned. To his surprise, he realized it was only yesterday afternoon. "It's a. . . long story. Bad guys captured me and Mister Stark."

"Dude, _what_?" Ned hissed. "Who? When?"

"Yesterday after school," Peter said. "It's an evil organization. They used to be SHIELD hackers, but then they, like, turned. Order 66-style."

"Bad. Ass." Ned pronounced it as two separate words. "So, what happened? You escaped?"

"Yeah," Peter said. "But they did, too."

"Oooh."

Peter twisted over his shoulder to check the door. "Ned, I need your help," he said. "I'm on SHIELD house arrest and I don't have any Wi-Fi. I need you to Google something for me."

Peter could practically _hear_ Ned smile over the phone. "Guy in the chair," Ned whispered smugly, and Peter couldn't tell if Ned was talking to him or himself. "Hold on. I have to get my laptop." Peter could vaguely hear shuffling. "Evil SHIELD organization," Ned repeated under his breath. "That's definitely not cool, but. . . it's kind of cool."

"Yeah, I know."

"Okay. I have my laptop. What do you need me to look up?"

Peter glanced at the door again, paranoid he was about to get caught. "A guy named Jason King," he said.

"Jason King," he heard Ned mumble under his breath as he typed. "Who is he? Is that the guy that captured you?"

"Yeah. Well – sort of."

There was a pause. "Uh, I don't think this is what you're looking for," Ned said.

Peter's head whipped back around. "What? What'd you find?"

" _Jason King_ is a British TV show from the seventies."

"What?" Peter groaned. King apparently wasn't as rare of a name as he had hoped.

"Hey, IMDb gave it a seven out of ten."

"Ned," Peter hissed. "Not helpful."

"Sorry, sorry." Ned paused. "Okay, I'm gonna try adding 'SHIELD personnel' or something to the end."

"Yeah. Good idea." Peter felt his hopes rise again as he heard the tap of Ned's keys. "Anything?" he asked after a moment.

Ned made an uncertain hum. "Not really. These are all, like. . . insurance companies." He paused. "These are literally all LinkedIn. Who still uses LinkedIn? "

"Forget it," Peter said. Giving a little groan, he dragged his hand down his face.

It wasn't like he had been expecting to find Jason King's personal Twitter account or anything. But _something_ would have been nice.

He was frowning down at the suit when his eyes landed on the suit's webshooters.

Suddenly, Peter had a much better idea. "Ned," he whispered, looking back at the computer monitor. "EMPs – they can take out generators and phones and stuff, right?"

"Yeah. They disturb anything with an electronic signal," Ned said instantly. "Why?"

"So they could probably disable a security system too, right?" Peter said absentmindedly. "Can you find, like – a map of recent EMP discharges?"

"I could try." Ned's keys started clacking again. "Why EMPs?"

"That's what they used to take out my webshooters. Maybe they used it for something else."

"They took out your webshooters?"

"Yeah, before King crushed one."

"He _crushed_ it?!" Ned repeated. "Like, with his fist? Does he have a metal hand or something?"

"Don't think so. Ned, look, I'll tell you everything later, I promise. Just not now. Did you find anything?"

There was a short silence. "Yeah. . . ." Ned sounded puzzled. "Apparently, there is an actual website that monitors this kind of thing."

"Yes!" Peter said, grinning widely. He didn't care if it was obscure. "Okay, narrow it. Somewhere in New York. They said they were coming back, so they should be somewhere here."

"That's still a pretty huge area, but. . . ." Ned trailed off. "Okay, we've got something. This looks like the most recent – only one hour ago."

"Perfect!" Peter whispered. He grabbed a pen from a cup on the desk. "Where?"

Ned told him the address, and Peter quickly scribbled it onto his palm. He studied the address – he recognized the name of the street, and he was pretty sure it wasn't too far from where he was right now.

He sprung up from the chair. "Thanks for your help, Ned. I gotta go."

"What? Why?"

"I. . . have to go see what they're doing?" Peter said, puzzled.

"Well. . . can't I come along? You know, guy-in-the-chair?"

 _Oh_. Peter realized what Ned was asking. "Ned, I don't have a mask. I'm talking to you through a computer. I can't bring it with me."

"Wait. . . you don't have the mask?" Ned asked.

"No, I lost it."

"Then, how are you going to go out in the suit?"

Peter stopped. "Crap," he muttered. "You're right." In the corner of his eye, he saw the closet that he had gotten his clothes from. "I'll figure something out," he said after a moment. "Bye, Ned."

"Peter?" Ned said. "Don't die, okay?"

"Don't worry, I will. I mean – I won't. FRIDAY, end call."

* * *

Once more dressed in the suit, Peter hunted in the closet for something he could use as a mask. He had already found a pair of sunglasses elsewhere in the apartment, but he needed something else to cover his face.

He was starting to think that he might just have to wrap a t-shirt around his head and cut eyeholes out of it when his hand closed over something at the top of the closet. Feeling his hopes rise, Peter pulled it down.

It was a ski mask. _Perfect!_ Quickly, Peter slipped the sunglasses on first and then pulled the mask on over them.

Mockup mask assembled, he checked his reflection in the glass of the window. The ski-mask-sunglasses combo didn't exactly look great, but at least his face was covered.

Peter's gaze shifted. He realized he wasn't looking at the mask anymore; he was looking at his eyes through the sunglasses.

 _What am I doing?_

All too clearly, Tony's words echoed through his head. _Don't go out looking for those guys, you hear me? This is a SHIELD mess. Leave it to them to clean it up._

Peter chewed his lip and glanced at the computer behind him. The address Ned had told him repeated in his mind.

He wasn't really _going after_ HEL, he was just. . . keeping an eye on them. Besides, he could be more helpful if he knew what was going on. If he found out where they had struck last, maybe SHIELD could get them even faster. He just needed to find a direction. A clue. Something.

Peter made up his mind.

 _Sorry, Mister Stark._

He unlatched the window and dragged it open. Cold air blew into the room, and Peter ducked outside.

* * *

 _._

 _._

 _A/N: Ahahaha, and here we have it, the chapter that kick-started my inspiration again. :D I think the inclusion of Ned helped me out a lot. Him and Peter being detective nerds was incredibly fun to write._

 _It's always interesting to have a character Google something in a story, because I just straight-up Google what they would Google, and write out their reactions to the actual webpages that I find. When I created my character Jason King, I had no idea there was a TV show of the same name, so that was kinda fun to find out, lol._

 _Huge thanks to my reviewers: Guest (#1) (Lol, I like that chapter name too), cargumentluv, LoonyLovegood1981, Tala May, Guest (#2) (Holy wow... that means so much to me. Thanks for the binge-read!), KHARAKI TAKAN, and sereidoragon! Love you all!_


	17. False Alarms

**17**

Rooftops were a lot less fun with no webs.

"Why couldn't – you guys – break in – anywhere closer?" Peter panted in segmented breaths.

He had decided the best way to get to the address was to go by the rooftops. This wasn't a bad idea, until Peter realized it would essentially just be a long sprint but with a lot more obstacles in his way.

"Gah!" Peter stumbled a little as he nearly crashed into one of those – what were they called, anyway? One of those little mushroom-shaped, spinny-vent things that roofs seemed to have. _Turbines? Vents?_

He skidded to a stop as he came to an intersection. Peeking over the edge of the roof, he scanned for street signs. His eyes lit up as he caught the name of the street he was looking for. _Yes! Finally!_

He turned right and kept running across the rooftops, jumping over the gaps formed by alleyways. He was going to be across the street from the actual address, but this way he could see what was happening from a distance.

"Okay. Gotcha." Panting slightly, Peter slid to a stop and crouched down at the edge of the roof. He narrowed his eyes at the building across the street.

The address had led to. . . .

Lucky's Pizza.

Peter stopped short. "What?" Frowning, he pried up the edge of the suit's left glove and checked the address he had scribbled onto his palm.

This was where Ned had told him to go.

Peter looked up again. The pizza shop was in a strip – the pulse could have gone off anywhere in this general area. _Let's see – nail salon, herbal tea shop, kebab shop, and a laundromat._

None of which were particularly incriminating.

Peter sat back on his heels, deep in thought.

Maybe one of them was a front for weapons dealings or an underground bank or something. Heartened at the idea, Peter looked over the buildings again. Any of them could easily be a front. _That has to be it._

He hadn't planned on getting involved, but. . . something was off. He had to find out what was going on.

Peter swung his legs over the edge of the rooftop and slid down the side of the building, loosely gripping the brick with one hand to slow his momentum. He dropped to the ground and strode across the street.

Lampposts flickered. All the shops were dark and locked up, even the laundromat, which was a little odd.

Peter suddenly realized that the street was more or less abandoned; there wasn't a single person here. He could barely hear the whir of traffic. Even car horns sounded muted from here.

Every sense on high alert, Peter moved closer to the strip.

Now more than ever, he wished he still had a mask. Karen – or FRIDAY, for that matter – could scan for heat signatures, monitor outgoing signals, check security systems. Instead, he was going to have to do this the hard way.

 _Look at me, ol' fashioned Peter, superhero-ing like they used to in the old days._

The metal shutter on the inside of the pizza restaurant's window was dented, leaving a slim gap where Peter could see inside. He crept toward that first, narrowing his eyes into the darkness.

From what he could tell by the light of the streetlamp, it was a regular pizza shop – ovens, tables, booths, cash register. No secret trapdoor that he could see.

Frustrated, Peter pulled away.

"Doesn't make any sense," he muttered under his breath. "Why would they break in _here_?"

As soon as he said it, he realized his mistake; HEL hadn't _broken in_ anywhere – all Peter knew was that an EMP pulse had _gone off_ here. He had assumed that they would have used the pulse to get into something they couldn't hack, like a security system, but maybe it was. . . .

He turned around to study the street.

Maybe it was what? There was nothing in the street that would have been affected by an EMP either. Actually, it kind of seemed like the pulse had gone off for no reason.

Peter frowned. Something was niggling at the back of his mind, making it difficult to concentrate. Not spider-sense, per se, this was just. . . a _feeling_.

The feeling of being watched.

Peter turned around.

A security camera mounted to the outside of the pizza shop turned away from him.

An uneasy feeling stirred in Peter's stomach. _Was that thing watching me?_

More movement caught his eye, and he quickly looked down the strip at the laundromat. Another camera there turned away from him too, like it had just been caught staring.

Peter moved back a step, his head turning between the two cameras. _Uh-oh._

 _Exactly how hard would it be to hack a city grid's security cameras?_

Not very, Peter was guessing.

With that thought, he turned on his heel and started running. He went back across the street towards the building he had come from and leapt up onto it, his fingers gripping onto the brick. He climbed up as fast as he could, trying to escape the scope of the cameras.

Even as he retraced his steps, running along the rooftops the same way he had come, he couldn't shake that same feeling. Suddenly, it seemed like there were eyes everywhere, and they were all watching him.

The feeling stayed with him all the way back to the safehouse.

.

* * *

 _._

 _._

 _A/N: Oh-ho-ho, what's this? Another chapter up so quickly? xD Merry Christmas, my lovely readers, followers, favoriters, and reviewers. I know this chapter was kind of shorter, but consider it my present to you.  
_

 _Heaps of thanks to JaliceJelsa4eva, seireidoragon, Shadow-wolf78, and cargumentluv for your reviews! Hope you have good holidays!_


	18. Previously, On 'Peter Screws the Pooch'

**18**

Agent Hill still wasn't back yet.

Peter paced the apartment, feeling restless and jumpy. It was one o'clock – she had been gone for hours.

He hadn't slept much. After coming back to the safehouse, he was too on edge to do anything.

He glanced at the computer in his room and briefly thought about calling Ned with the suit again, but decided against it. He was pretty sure he had caused enough trouble already.

Instead, he ate a bowl of cereal.

He paced the apartment.

He ate another bowl of cereal.

He turned the TV on and flicked through the channels for about two minutes before giving up and turning it off again.

This was getting ridiculous.

 _What else can I do?_ Peter thought. He hung upside-down off the ceiling by his fingertips, his legs tucked underneath him. He was completely alienated here – no phone, no Hill, no –

His thoughts were interrupted as he heard Agent Hill's voice coming through the wall.

"– down on Ground floor. Priority Level Seven. I want those assets secure."

Peter looked up quickly, his heart starting to race. There was a lot of commotion happening in the hall. He twisted his body around and dropped quietly to the floor.

The door to the apartment unlocked. Agent Hill swept inside, her body language quick and tense. She glanced at Peter, and he felt his stomach twist as he saw her expression. "Ag-Agent Hill? Is everything okay?"

"Safehouse has been compromised," she said.

Peter's stomach dropped. "What?"

She met his eyes. "We had a security breach," she said simply. "HEL found the safehouse."

 _This is my fault._

Peter swallowed with effort and opened his mouth.

"Come on," Hill said before he could speak. She jerked her head in the direction of the door. "We have to move."

Before Peter could even move, spider-sense screamed in his head like a fire alarm.

The apartment exploded.

Both Peter and Hill were flung back against the wall. Peter felt himself crash into the kitchen cabinets before he hit the floor, dull pain coursing through his body.

Disoriented, Peter shook his head and pushed himself up. "Are you okay?" he asked, raising his voice. He sounded hoarse.

Agent Hill had recovered almost as quickly. She crouched behind the counter in the kitchen, her gun already in her hands. "Go. Go!" she shouted to him. She aimed her gun at the cloud of smoke rising from the collapsed wall. A shape had appeared in the smoke, hovering midair.

As it came closer, the shape became clearer – it was an Iron Man suit, and all of its wrist rockets and shoulder rockets were unfolded and pointed at Peter and Hill.

Peter tensed, but then a voice came from the suit.

"Friendly," came Tony's voice from the faceplate. The rockets deactivated, tucking back into the suit as he relaxed his stance.

Agent Hill didn't move, her gun still aimed at the chest piece. "Prove it. Your suits have been hacked before."

In reply, the armor's faceplate lifted away, revealing Tony's face. The cuts along his cheekbones were still red and raw. He wordlessly raised his eyebrows. "Are we good?"

Hill sharply lowered her gun, letting out her breath at the same time. "What are you doing here?"

"I didn't blow up your wall, if that's what you're asking. JARVIS, can we run analysis on that?"

"Tony. What are you doing _here_?" Agent Hill asked again.

"Heard the commotion," Tony said. "Couldn't just let you have all the fun."

Hill raised an eyebrow. "But _we_ are not wounded, Mr. Stark," she said, overly politely.

"You're talking to a healing man, Hill. Bullet's out, and I feel good as new."

"There is also a rather significant amount of painkillers in his system," JARVIS added, his voice coming through the faceplate.

"Thanks, J," Tony muttered. "Look, I'll worry about me, you worry about you." The faceplate closed over Tony's face again, and he looked over at Peter. "You good?"

"Yeah. I'm fine," Peter managed.

"Good, 'cause you've got a lecture coming," Tony said. "I told you not to do one thing. _One_. Don't go looking for trouble. So what do you go and do?"

"I know," Peter mumbled.

"You do the _one thing_!" Tony said over him, sounding more exasperated than angry.

"I know, it was stupid, I –" Peter bit his tongue. "I'm sorry."

He could hear Tony sigh from inside the suit. "Well. SHIELD's gonna be more pissed at you than I am," he muttered after a moment. "That blast was caused by a gas explosion – something inside the wall triggered it. Looks like somebody's trying to flush you out."

Tony paused. A blue schematic of the apartment building had swept onto his display, and the ventilation system was highlighted in flashing red.

" _Crap_ ," Tony muttered under his breath. "This was just a test run. Okay, unless you normally have explosive gas running through all your vents, we're gonna have to move," he said, raising his voice.

Hill looked up sharply. "What?"

"Looks like someone's crossed your wires." Tony's eyes flicked over the hologram. "Coolant system's leaking into the ventilation. This building's gonna be a giant bomb in a few minutes."

Hill swore and turned away, raising a hand to her earpiece.

"Pete, we're gonna need your help," Tony said, and Peter eagerly looked up. "JARVIS, give the kid his upgrade."

Right on cue, something flew in through the air towards Peter.

Spider-sense reacted before Peter did. His hand shot up, grabbing the parcel before he even realized what he was doing. He lowered his arm and blinked in surprise.

It was a Spider-Man suit. And actually, it looked a lot like the suit he had taken from the Toy Box. "This looks like –"

"Mark 19? Yep." Tony paused, then added, "With the notable exception being this one won't fry you when you disappear."

Peter looked up. "Really? So the cloaking is –"

"All fixed," Tony said, like it was nothing. "Borrowed the specs from Mark 19, revamped some things. Even got my hands on some of your webbing. I had time." Tony nodded his head up at him. "Suit up. We're gonna need you."

As Peter dashed into the other room to change, Tony turned to Hill. She still held one hand to her earpiece, but she shook her head. "They're jamming our communications. I can't get through."

"Yeah, not surprised." Tony sounded distracted. The display had just zoomed into the top few floors, where heat signatures were shown clustered in rooms. "Which means some people don't have the message yet."

Peter skidded back into the room in the new suit. It was silvery and shiny all over, and the lenses on the mask were wide with excitement.

"Pete, we've got people in the top three floors," Tony said. "Get them down using the stairwells, do _not_ use the elevators, got it?"

"You got it!" Peter ran to the edge of the destroyed apartment and leapt out. Twisting around midair, he shot two webs at the building to catch himself out of free fall. He leapt onto the side of the building and started crawling up towards the roof.

Tony glanced back at Hill. "We have about eight minutes til this place goes up. You want a quick lift down?"

Hill shook her head. "I still have men on this floor. They need to be evacuated."

"Suit yourself. But you better move quick." Tony lifted away from the building. "And don't do anything to set off that gas!" he called after her.

"Since you brought it up, sir, I might point out that our thrusters on this suit would ignite the gas if we try to help them inside," JARVIS spoke up.

"Yep." Tony nodded once, distracted. "Why do you think I sent off the Child Wonder to get everyone else out? We're damage control, buddy. But we're going to need some supplies." He stopped midair, using the palm rockets to hold himself aloft, and glanced in the general direction of the Avengers Tower. "Call in the Iron Legion."

* * *

The safehouse was a ten-story building, which meant Peter only had to evacuate the top three floors. In under eight minutes. No sweat.

Peter smashed through the tenth-story window, hands tucked protectively over his face like a bullet.

He landed heavily on the inside of the building, the shattered glass falling around him like rain. As he coughed, trying to get his breath back, he could hear the sound of guns cocking.

"Don't move!"

Ah. Right. He hadn't quite thought this far. The agents up here still didn't know what was actually going on.

Automatically, Peter raised his hands. "Don't shoot, don't shoot," he said quickly.

Blinking, he lifted his head, and the two guys slowly came into focus. They looked like guards, similar to the ones Peter had seen on his own floor.

"Don't move!" the first agent ordered again.

Peter didn't move. He was on the wrong end of two guns to do anything yet. "I know, I know, this looks bad, and I'm sorry about your window, but we have a situation."

The second agent peered at him. "It's the kid from floor seven."

"Yeah," Peter said, ignoring the "kid" part. Keeping his hands raised, he slowly got to his feet. "Look, guys, the safehouse is in trouble. We have to get everyone off this floor–"

"Hold on." The first agent reached for the radio on his shoulder. "Ground, we have Parker here, do you copy?"

A digital squeal of static buzzed on the radio.

"Your communications are out," Peter said quickly. "The safehouse is under attack, um –" He desperately racked his brain. "Priority Level Seven?" he tried, remembering what Agent Hill had said earlier.

The agents exchanged glances.

This wasn't as easy as Peter had been hoping. And he was running out of time. "Come on, guys, please," he pleaded as a last resort. "Your communications aren't working. You know something's going on."

There was another beat of silence, and Peter felt like he was getting somewhere. "We have to get everyone off this floor," he repeated. "This building's gonna explode."

After what seemed like forever, the first guy nodded once. "Get the assets," he said to the other.

Peter felt his shoulders physically drop in relief. "Thank you. Thank you, guys."

The agents began evacuating everyone from the rooms. Peter blew breath out his cheeks and dashed towards the door to the stairwell.

* * *

The Iron Legion flew through the air, leaving white trails in their wake. They all lined up midair in front of Tony, obediently waiting for instructions.

"Afternoon, ladies," Tony called out. "Focus up, we've got work to do."

He started gesturing to the building as he spoke. "Squad One, Squad Two, you're ground control. Set up a perimeter, get people away from this building. Threes, break the windows. We can at least try to air it out a little. Use _fists_ , not blaster fire. We're aiming to help here."

The first three squadrons immediately started, and Tony turned to the rest of the hovering lineup. "Everyone else, you're extraction. Get people out through those windows and down to safety."

Tony watched carefully as each of the androids dove into their respective tasks. For a moment, with the dozens upon dozens of robots swarming around the building, it almost looked like everything was under control.

"Fingers crossed, JARVIS," Tony muttered. "We might just win this one."

* * *

"Come on, everybody, go go go go!" Peter said quickly, moving his hand in rapid circles. A line of people streamed past him, filing out into the stairwell.

A slick layer of sweat ran underneath his suit. It had been a little easier to convince the next floor down to evacuate, but it still felt like it was taking too long.

The last person finally passed him, following the rest of the group down the stairs.

"Is that everybody?" Peter double-checked the door and started following the others.

 _Okay, one more floor. One more._

Peter swung his legs over a staircase to get to the next door, and suddenly the swinging motion made his head spin.

Startled, Peter abruptly stopped, gripping tightly onto the door handle to steady himself. His head felt a little. . . weird. It was hard to think.

"Your vitals are looking troubling," said a female voice from Peter's ear, and he flinched in surprise.

As he recognized the voice, however, a smile broke over his face. "Karen!" Peter said excitedly. "You're back!"

"I wasn't aware I had left," his AI said, sounding politely amused.

"Yeah, it's, uh –" Peter thought about FRIDAY. "Long story."

"Kid?" Tony's voice suddenly came in Peter's ear.

"Oh, hey, Mister Stark," Peter said, raising a hand to his mask.

"Karen just sent me your vitals. You feeling okay?"

"Me, yeah. Yeah. Fine." Peter braced himself up against the wall.

"Uh-huh." Tony sounded unconvinced. "Okay, look, stay where you are."

"I can't, I still have another floor –"

" _Stay there,_ " Tony repeated. "The Iron Legion's already evacuated everyone else through the windows. You're the last one in, and you're running out of time here, kiddo."

Suddenly, Peter definitely _did_ feel lightheaded. "Everyone's out? Are you sure?"

"Duck," Tony said loudly.

Glass smashed behind Peter. He flinched in surprise and whipped around, preparing for an attack.

Instead, one of Tony's Iron Legion robots stood at the window, its face painted a deep blue.

"This area is unsafe. Please come with me," it said in its calm, robotic tone.

Peter relaxed and gave a little grin despite himself. "Okay, okay, I'm going," he said.

" _Now_ ," Tony prompted.

Peter wriggled out of the window, gripping onto the outside of the building with his fingers.

"I can get down on my own, thanks," he said to the robot. It lowered its arms, and Peter could swear that if it could shrug, it would have.

He shot a web at a neighboring building and pushed off the safehouse, letting it carry him down to the ground.

And not a moment too soon.

Peter felt heat prickle at the back of his neck before he heard it – the safehouse exploded.

The force of the blast pushed him forcefully towards the ground, and his feet skidded onto the asphalt.

He spun around. The building was completely aflame, black smoke billowing out the windows. "Whoa," he said under his breath, startled at what had almost happened.

His attention was drawn to a crowd standing a ways away. _That must be everyone else_.

Shaking his head to clear it, Peter started running toward them.

* * *

"Is everybody okay? Are you okay?"

Peter ran from person to person, seeming to ask the same question over and over. Amidst the groups of people there were metal androids, their faces painted a deep blue. Peter ducked around them, searching the faces for Tony.

Peter realized his chest was aching. He started coughing, and pulled his mask off to try to get more air.

Suddenly he heard a voice from behind him.

"Kid!"

He heard the whoosh of the Iron Man armor behind him, and he spun around.

"Definition of cutting it too close, don't you think?" Tony's tone was casual, but his body language said otherwise; his eyes darted quickly over Peter, checking for injuries. "You alright?"

"Yeah. I got out, I'm fine," Peter said. The right shoulder of the suit had gotten touched by the explosion, leaving a dusky smudge, but otherwise it had held up well.

After a moment, Tony nodded. "Okay. Good." The faceplate slid closed, and he glanced away at something in the distance. "Hill, how'd we do?"

Peter followed Tony's gaze to see Hill striding up to them.

"Everyone's out," she said. Her eyebrows flicked up. "Miraculously. We have a lot of wounded. SHIELD is sending out transports."

Tony deactivated the rockets and landed on the ground. "Good. Because we have to go."

Hill's eyebrows furrowed. "I have agents down. I'm not leaving."

"The Legion can protect your guys until the transports arrive. Hill, this wasn't the fight. This was just step one. Real party's happening a few blocks from here."

She nodded up at him. "How do you know?"

"Because your dear sweet hackers just sent me a message," Tony muttered. His eyes flicked over the display. "And I have an invite."

The address flashed in front of his eyes.

"JARVIS?" Tony said. "I'm gonna RSVP with a yes, how about you?"

JARVIS interpreted the order. "Plotting course to coordinates now."

"This is it. End game." Tony lifted off the ground in a hover. The faceplate angled slightly towards Peter. "You coming?"

Peter opened his mouth to respond, but Hill answered instead.

"Fury wants him out of the field."

"Well, tell the big guy he's making a mistake. We're gonna need all hands on deck here."

"Tell him yourself," Fury's voice rang out.

They all turned around. Fury was walking toward them, looking ominous through the smoke.

"Nick," Agent Hill said. "I thought you were –"

"I was," Fury said, cutting her off. "But then some maniac tried to blow up my building." He looked out at the men and addressed Hill. "How are they?"

"We have injured," she said. "But no fatalities."

Tony spoke up. "You're welcome, for that, by the way. But Nick, we've got bigger problems."

At this, Fury looked over at Tony. "And if you don't mind me asking, what the hell are you doing out of bed?" he asked pointedly.

"Uh." Tony turned to look at the smoldering remains of the SHIELD safehouse. "Cleaning up your mess?"

"Let's say this was a little out of the ordinary for us," Fury said. "It seems our security was breached earlier this morning." He looked at Peter as he spoke.

Peter audibly swallowed. "Yes, sir, I –"

Fury met his eye, and his stare was cool. "We'll talk about it later," he said firmly, and Peter had a sudden, sinking feeling that he meant it.

 _I'm gonna die._

"Right now I want to focus on the Circuit," Fury continued, turning back to the other two.

"I've got a location," Tony said.

Fury held up a phone displaying the same coordinates. "So do we," he said. "They didn't exactly try very hard to mask their signal this time. Which means one thing."

"They want a fight, and they want you there for it." Tony nodded absently. "Yeah."

"Well," Nick sighed, sounding tired. "Guess I woulda had to deal with those boys sooner or later." He slid the phone back into a pocket. "But this time, we're not going in half-cocked. We need a plan."

"No problem." Tony gave Fury an upward nod. "You guys invented escape plans, right?"

A smile came over Fury's face.

Peter slowly pulled his mask back on.

.

* * *

 _._

 _A/N: Thank you for reading! Did you like it? :D This chapter was very nearly one of the most fun to write to date. :D And since it's been a little while since I've posted, I wanted to make it nice and long for you guys. AND YAY, TONY'S BACK! I didn't even realize that I missed writing him until I started working on this chapter._

 _By the way, if anybody was curious as to how long this story's going to be, I'd say we have about four-ish chapters left until the end. Coming up is the final showdown. HEL v Fury. King v Tony. Peter v . . . uh, the bad guys in general? Stay tuned!_

 _Thanks to seireidoragon, cargumentluv, Stark-staffie, angelicfrosty, and Shadow-wolf78 for your reviews! I love reading them every time. :3_


	19. We Create Our Own Demons

**19**

"So how many are we dealing with? You scanned for heat signatures yet?" Tony asked.

"It's not what you'd be expecting," Hill said, tapping something on her wrist to bring up the scan. "We're only reading two in the building."

Onboard a Quinjet, they had left the safehouse and were on their way toward the coordinates HEL had sent.

"Makes sense," Tony said in reply to Hill. "Nearly everything runs on power. If they've hacked into all the systems, they can have control remotely, stay out of the line of fire."

"And keep us in it," Hill muttered.

"Um." Hovering at the back of the Quinjet, Peter half-raised one hand. He had been watching their exchange silently, trying to work out where exactly they were going. "So – where are they, anyway?"

Tony looked at him, seeming to realize they hadn't told him where the coordinates led to yet. "Back where this whole thing began," he said. "Avengers Tower."

.

* * *

.

"We're still a few minutes out," Fury said, crossing his arms. "Your tower, Tony. Want to lay out the game plan?"

"Yeah, uh. . . ." Tony rubbed the bridge of his nose. The Iron Man helmet had retracted completely into the armor's shoulders and back pieces, leaving his head free. "Where were we again?"

"SHIELD can kill the power remotely," Fury said. "We have access to the city grid. We can deactivate the Tower and render HEL's tech useless."

Tony rubbed his lip. "Yeah, that's not gonna work," he mumbled into his hand.

Fury looked up, patience in his eye. "And exactly why not?"

"Tower runs by itself," Tony said. "Self-sustaining, clean energy, all that. Keeps the environmentalists happy, helpful when there's a blackout, but. . . ." He gave a half-shrug and shook his head.

"Hardly helpful now," Hill finished with a sigh, leaning against the wall of the Quinjet. "Is there another way to shut off its power?"

Tony answered with a nod. "There's a manual switch. Basement level."

"I can do that," Peter offered, subconsciously raising one hand.

They all looked over at him.

"You're the one who volunteered him to be here," Fury reminded Tony, glancing at him.

"I did, didn't I," Tony said absently, his eyes going right through Peter. After a moment his eyes refocused. "Okay. Kid-hero's gonna kill the power. You're gonna have to get in at ground level. Garage'll be your best bet for getting in – any keypad you see, the access code will be 0273. Main power switch is on the lowermost level." Tony paused for a second. "What's our ETA again?" he asked Fury without looking at him.

Fury glanced at a screen, seemingly unruffled by the sudden question. "Minute fifty-five."

Tony soundlessly mouthed repeated the number, then nodded once. "Okay." He started walking towards the back of the Quinjet and hit the open hatch. The hatch slowly yawned open, wind swirling into the jet.

"Whoa whoa whoa, and where exactly are you going?" Fury asked.

"Quinjet's a little slow for me," Tony said over his shoulder. The helmet and faceplate erupted from the suit's shoulders, encasing his head again. "And I want to make sure King's not breaking my Tower."

"Would you care to at least know what floor they're on?" Fury asked, his voice heavy with sarcasm.

"Keep me posted!" Tony called over his shoulder. He strode towards the end of the ramp and jumped out of the Quinjet.

Fury pressed the button to close the hatch again. "Stark," he muttered, like that explained everything.

.

* * *

.

Every rocket on full-blast, Tony swerved sharply around a building, and Avengers Tower came into view.

"Alright." Tony's eyes flicked over to his communications in the corner of his display. "Where am I going?"

"Both heat sigs are on Floor 30," came Hill's voice in Tony's ear. "But one of them's moving."

"On it." Tony tucked his chin downward. "JARVIS?"

Obediently, JARVIS scanned the Tower with a fine blue grid, then highlighted one of the floors in red. "Floor 30 directly ahead, sir."

Tony blasted straight towards it. At the last possible second, he raised one arm and fired a blast at the glass window. The glass shattered and Tony smashed through, raising his arms to cover his face.

He landed heavily on the floor inside, smoke swirling out from the heel rockets. He looked up.

He was in one of his workshops. He recognized this room well; there were tables scattered around, cluttered with tools and unfinished projects.

King was at the far end of the room; this time, Tony recognized his silhouette.

The Casket was positioned at his side.

Tony straightened and started slowly walking towards him. "Gosh, isn't deja vu so weird?" he said. "Like, I could swear we just did this whole shebang a few days ago."

King indicated the Casket. "HEL's made some progress."

"Yeah, just so we're clear, you did _steal_ that."

"You weren't using it," King said back. "Until now."

"We've already discussed this. I'm not opening your revenge box," Tony called out, sounding impatient.

" _Your_ box," King corrected. "And I'm pretty sure you will."

"Yuh-huh. Any plans on how you're gonna do that? I'm dressed in my finest nitinol-plated one-piece with a full arsenal, and you're standing in my way. I'm not liking your odds."

There was a whirring sound from behind King, like something charging up. Lights clicked on behind him, and Tony realized that King was standing in front of a semicircle of half a dozen Iron Man suits, and each one was connected to an active charging pad.

"I'm liking mine," King said.

Tony didn't move for a minute. "Right," he said finally. _Workshop. Suit workshop._

JARVIS rapidly ran diagnostics, scanning each individual suit's weapon array and capabilities. "Sir, we are significantly outgunned. There are too many for us to fight off alone."

"Yep, guessed as much." Tony licked his lips, deep in thought.

"Now would you like to step forward?" King asked.

"Parker's just dropped down," came Fury's voice in Tony's ear. "We're here."

Tony felt something relax in his chest, and he addressed King. "No thanks," he said. "Backup's arrived."

The Quinjet swept up sharply into view, its engines swirling air into the shattered window. The back hatch opened and Fury and Hill climbed out and into Avengers Tower, guns in their hands.

Tony glanced at them out of the corner of his eye as they lined up beside him. "Fury, thank God. I was starting to run out of one-liners."

"Nick," King said, his voice echoing around the room. "So glad you could make it."

"Wouldn't have missed it for the world," Fury said dryly.

"Told you next time we met we would pick the battleground." King gestured around to the Tower. "What do you think?"

"Uh, if my opinion counts for anything, I'd say this is bad," Tony piped up. "Bad location. Couldn't have sprung for an abandoned parking garage, or something? Little more low-key?"

King's gaze focused on him. "What's wrong, Stark?" he asked, his voice soft. "The suit look a little more powerful when you're on the wrong end?"

"Maybe." Tony eyed the suits carefully. "Maybe I just don't like people touching my stuff."

"They've all got a base AI in them," King said with a twitch of his head, indicating the suits behind him. "Basic targeting systems, automated flight capabilities, weapons arrays. Doesn't take much to get them going. Just need a target –" He paused. "Or two or three."

Wordlessly, Tony studied the suits. HEL would have to be using the suits' charging pads as a jump-off point to get the suits activated – if Peter cut the power before King released them, they would be rendered useless.

 _Come on, kid, hurry up._

King smiled at Tony's silence. "Guns down," he said in a low voice. "Or else the suits will put them down for you."

Slowly, Fury lowered his gun, and Hill did the same.

Tony reluctantly deactivated the palm blasters.

.

* * *

 _Okay, Peter, don't screw this up._

Peter crept along the hallways, moving as fast as he could while still staying quiet.

The basement was dark and humming quietly. He had found access inside through one of the garages and was now slowly navigating his way through the underground level.

He had learned that the basement level seemed to be one giant hardware hub in itself. Tiny multicolored lights blinked at Peter through the vent slats in the walls.

His eyes landed on a door that read POWER – MAIN. Eyes brightening, he trotted towards it and pushed it open with a grunt.

He was greeted with another wall-sized hub of readouts and switches, with one notable difference – the main power switch set in the center of it all.

 _Whoa_.

The switch was huge – like, almost comically big. Definitely bigger than what he had been expecting. It was a U-shaped lever with a handle bridging the top, just like the ones that cheesy movie villains used.

A sign above it read ALL POWER.

 _Well, this has to be it._

He reached up and gripped the handle with both hands.

.

* * *

.

"Well, Stark?" King asked. He gestured to the Casket. "I'm ready when you are."

Tony silently deliberated whether he would have enough time and accuracy to shoot the Casket from here. _One well-placed blast. . . ._

"Tony," King said again, softly. His voice had taken on a dangerous tone. "You're going to open this whether you want to or not."

"Am I? Couldn't spring for a third option?" Despite his tone, Tony was tense. They had run out of time. It was time for Plan B.

"Last chance, Stark. Want to do this the easy way?"

"No," Tony said. "Final answer."

King shrugged, as if it was little matter to him. "Your choice." He raised his wrist to his mouth and spoke into a com. "Fire them up."

On cue, the semicircle of suits behind King whirred to life.

"Stark," Fury said warningly.

"Trust me, I know what I'm doing. I think." In the chaos of the crossfire, he could destroy the Casket.

Maybe.

"Status, kid," Tony murmured under his breath, speaking into his faceplate. His eyes darted to the communication line with Peter and back to the charging suits. "Status _now_."

"Yeah almost there just a sec!" Peter's voice grunted back.

Each of the suits' palm repulsers flared to life. "We don't have a sec," Tony muttered to himself, his eyes wide.

The Iron Man faceplate snapped closed. Both Fury and Hill tensed, readying their guns.

But just as the first suit's heel rockets began to separate from its charging pad, the power shut off.

The Tower fell dark.

Tony felt his entire body relax. _Good job, kid._

He could see King looking around in the sudden dark. "What the hell?"

Taking advantage of his confusion, Hill darted forward. She delivered a swift blow to King's nose and ducked down into a twist around his legs, kicking the back of his legs with her foot. He fell forward onto his knees, and she pressed her gun to the back of his head.

King grunted in surprise and pain, then let out a chuckle. "I'll be damned," he said.

"A little less impressive without your toys, huh?" Tony said.

King spat. Blood was flowing from his nose. "So are you," he said, slightly out of breath. "Where is Parker? He's the one who shut off the power, I'm guessing?"

Tony ignored him. "Alright, time to chat," he said. "Your employer. Your target. Now."

Hill pressed the gun harder against the back of King's head and he swore softly, raising his hands. " _Alright_ ," he growled. He looked up at Tony, and even in the dim light, Tony could see his whitish blue irises. "We'll tell you our target."

"We're all ears," Tony said.

"Captain Rogers."

The name echoed through Tony's head. He silently absorbed the shock, taking a deep breath, managing to maintain his poker face. "Okay, what's your gripe with Cap?"

"Absolutely nothing," King said. "I told you, our employer's the one who asked us to carry this through. We're simply doing a job for a client."

"No, there's an agenda here. _Why Cap_?"

"Let's just say that HEL gets a. . . happy by-product." King looked up and met Tony's eyes. "Sergeant Barnes."

At that Tony froze, shock coming over his face.

King smiled darkly. "Yeah, I hear you have some unfinished business with Barnes yourself, Stark."

Tony didn't move. "What do _you_ want with him?" he asked, his voice lower than usual.

"He's the closest link to HYDRA we have," King said simply.

Fury's eyes narrowed.

"When Widow spilled SHIELD's files to the world? Our names got spilled too. The world knew our names. And they knew what we had done.

"When we were at SHIELD, there had been HYDRA agents above us. Directing us, giving us orders. It had been _their_ agendas we were carrying out, _their_ orders we were following, but it didn't matter. We were the ones who had executed the orders, done their dirty work for them. Our names were attached. As far as the world knew, we were HYDRA too. We were branded."

"You can't undo the past, Jason," Fury said quietly.

"Maybe not," King admitted. "But you can make the guilty party pay."

"Skip to the end. Barnes," Tony interjected. "How'd you figure the Casket's going to help you get him?"

King's eyes flicked up. "If the past has proved anything, it's that once Rogers is in danger, Barnes isn't too far behind," he said. "We've read all your protocols, Stark. Once the Captain gets taken down, he gets taken to a SHIELD containment facility – it's all part of the contingencies.

"We have. . . friends at the facility. And they know just how to get us an audience when Barnes arrives."

"And then what?" Fury asked in a low voice.

"Then what?" King repeated. His eyes were intense. "Rumor is, HYDRA survived. And the Winter Soldier, whether he likes to think so or not, has connections. Associates. We have our list of names, and we'd like a word with our former superiors."

A silence hung in the air once he'd finished. After a moment, Tony spoke.

"Okay. Well, it's been fun. Sorry to ruin your plans. Fury? You want to call your guys to start cleaning this up?"

"You haven't won yet," King growled.

Tony glanced at him, raising an eyebrow. "Look at you," he said. "You're at SHIELD's mercy with your head at the wrong end of a semiautomatic. I don't think I've exactly _lost_."

King's gaze shifted to something behind Tony, and he seemed to smile, just slightly. "Not yet, at least."

"Oh yeah? You've got something else?"

"Actually, we do," King said. "I just needed to kill some time until he got here."

Tony narrowed his eyes, confused.

The lights in the room snapped back on full-force, and from behind him Tony heard a surprised cry.

Both Fury and Tony spun around. Peter stood a few feet behind them.

"Kid?"

Spider-Man looked up, the lenses on his mask narrowed against the sudden shock of light. "Hey, Mister Stark," he said.

Tony looked up at the ceiling lights. "What happened with the power? You didn't shut it off?"

"I – what? I did," Peter protested. He had even webbed the lever to the wall for good measure.

"Relax," King said. "You think we didn't anticipate you cutting the power? We brought some of our own. Backup – nothing much."

He paused, and a grin tugged at his mouth. "Not enough to power a whole legion, of course. Just enough to power a suit."

"Yeah? Which one?" Tony asked, quickly running through his mental list of suits stored in the Tower.

With his hands still poised over his head, King imperceptibly pressed something on the communications on his wrist. He nodded up at Tony and spoke softly. "Yours."

"Okay." Tony had had enough of the games. He went to take a step forward, but the armor resisted him, like it had locked up.

His eyebrows furrowed. "JARVIS? What is this?"

"Courtesy of Floor 37," King said. "You called it your, ah, Mirror Protocol, right?"

Realization came over Tony like cold water. _Mirror Protocol – that's the other heat signature._

"Sir," JARVIS said slowly, "we are being hacked."

Tony's heads-up display turned red.

[ _Warning: Unauthorized Override]_

 _[Source: Mirror Protocol Ver 6]_

Hill didn't change her stance, keeping her gun trained on the back of King's head, but her eyes flicked over the Iron Man armor, confused. "Tony?"

Tony's eyes were wide. "JARVIS," he said, his voice soft, hoarse. "Hit it with your antiviral programs. All of them, every one, I don't care. Now."

"All antiviral programs are working as fast as they can, sir. It may take several minutes."

The armor jerked Tony forward a step, towards Peter.

Panic set in. His heart starting to pound, Tony's eyes flicked rapidly over the ineffectual holographic screen. "Okay, then detach armor. Open up. I'm stepping out."

"I'm afraid they have blocked my access."

Tony closed his eyes for a second, swearing.

Peter took a hesitant step away from the armor as it continued to advance. "Uh, Mister Stark –?"

Tony's eyes snapped open. "Peter, get out of the way. Remember when you had the suit? This time, I'm not in control. You're gonna have to disable this suit. JARVIS can't do it remotely."

Hill and Fury exchanged glances, realizing the gravity of the situation.

Peter hesitated, confused. "I can't – I don't want to fight you. The suit –"

"Suit's gonna hurt you way more than you're gonna hurt it," Tony said, and unfortunately he knew he was right. " _Get out of the way_."

The armor forced Tony to raise his arm, and the palm repulser whirred to life.

Peter froze like a deer in headlights. His eyes went from the faceplate to the repulser, like he couldn't believe it was pointed at him.

"Kid, _move_!" Tony snapped.

The repulser fired. The white energy caught Peter dead in the shoulder, snapping him sideways. Making a noise halfway between a shout and a yelp, he hit the floor.

" _Shit!_ " Tony said, his heart pounding out of fear more than anything else.

Peter scrambled back to his feet almost as fast as he had fallen. The armor raised Tony's arm again, the blaster whirring to life.

Hill raised her gun and fired twice at the Iron Man armor, trying to disarm it in any way she could.

The armor didn't even flinch. The bullets ricocheted straight off, causing no more damage than sparks against the metal. It didn't matter anyway – the armor was dead-set on Peter, and it wasn't about to be distracted.

It fired again. Peter just barely managed to duck out of the way, but he felt the heat of the blast graze his shoulder.

He looked up to see the blaster facing him again. "Whoa!" He shot a web at the ceiling and yanked himself up, narrowly missing another blast.

King's eyes flitted up as he heard Hill's gunshots. Realizing her gun was no longer trained on him, he took his chance. He dropped his hands and forcefully swung one leg out behind him, sideswiping Hill's ankles. She hit the floor with a shout of pain.

King spun around, getting to his feet at the same time. He kicked Hill's gun out of the way, and it went skittering across the floor.

"Stay down," he told her.

Suddenly, Fury tackled him from behind, locking his arms around King's chest and trapping his arms.

"Call off your attacker," he grunted into King's ear.

Growling in response, King shoved his elbows backwards, elbowing Fury in the ribs. Fury grunted in pain but didn't let go.

Peter, for his part, clung to the ceiling for the moment, panting desperately to catch his breath. _What the hell just happened?_

He was keeping an eye on the armor. It raised one hand and a red laser came from the tip, and it smoothly cut a circle out of the ceiling around Peter. The ceiling broke away and Peter fell with it, too surprised to defend himself.

He hit the ground, and all the wind was knocked out of his lungs. Coughing out the drywall dust, he rolled over, propping himself up onto one elbow.

He didn't get the chance to catch his breath. Metal slammed into his shoulder, knocking him onto his back again, and his head snapped up with a gasp.

The suit had landed beside him, pinning down his shoulder with one foot. Taking its advantage, it pulled an arm back and started punching.

Peter's head snapped left, then right. Small grunts came muffled through the mask with every blow.

Tony squeezed his eyes shut; he couldn't help it. He was frozen with horror. The Iron Man armor was too strong to fight against from the inside. He didn't have any kind of leverage point – it was a prison form-fitted to his body, and he was just being taken along for the ride.

"Foxtrot Team!" Fury managed to say into his radio as he struggled with King. "We have hostile tech. We need an EMP on Floor –"

King's face darkened. He lunged for Fury's radio, knocking it out of Fury's hand before he could finish. The radio smashed against the floor.

Every one of Peter's senses was overloaded. Between the shock and the pain, he was finding it very hard to think straight.

As the armor's fist slammed into Peter's jaw again, he felt his lip split, and blood ran into his mouth.

Instincts took over.

His arm shot to the side and blindly fired a web. Hoping it had latched onto something heavy, he yanked it back towards himself.

What looked like a car engine part smashed into the side of the armor's head. The armor's head jerked to one side, only slowing its attack for a second, but it was enough. Even as it went to hit him again, Peter had enough time to react. His hand shot up and he grabbed the armor's fist as it came down, then yanked it powerfully up and over his head.

It worked. Pulled off-balance, the suit stumbled forward, and Peter quickly rolled out of the way.

Weak with relief, Tony spoke as quickly as he could. "Pete, aim for the chest. If you can disable the reactor, it should shut everything else down."

Peter's eyes darted to the bright blue circle of light in the middle of the chest. "Reactor. Got it!"

He sprung forward with a kick, landing his foot square in the middle of the chest. The suit fell backwards, and Peter sprung on top of it, shooting a web at one of the wrists to secure it to the floor. He pinned the other arm down with his foot.

" _Ow_ ," Tony grunted under his breath, keeping his voice low enough so Peter couldn't hear.

Peter started scrabbling at the reactor. Sure, he had super-strength, but the armor was slippery. He couldn't find any part of the reactor to grip onto, and his gloved fingers scrabbled uselessly against the its smooth face.

Tony was getting desperate and frustrated. "Kid, _destroy_ it. Just one punch, full-strength. Come on."

"No, I don't want to hurt you!" Peter said through gritted teeth, clawing frantically at the reactor.

The armor's webbed-down hand closed into a fist. A long blade shot out from it, slicing through the webs like fabric.

Peter's eyes snapped wide open. "Oh, God."

He sprung away as the armor got up. The long blade slashed at him and he flinched away, never moving his eyes from it.

He shot a web up at the ceiling and swung in an arc around the armor, firing a web at the blade at the same time.

Caught in the web, the bladed arm was twisted behind the armor's back. Peter webbed it securely to the back of Tony's shoulder, making sure it couldn't move this time.

He flipped over the armor and landed in front of it again, watching it carefully for any sudden moves.

The armor's head lifted sharply.

In one quick move it raised its unpinned arm and fired a blast at Peter. Caught off-guard, he got hit, and he was flung backwards.

Tony's raised hand formed a fist, and in his HUD he saw two crosshairs lock on Peter's wrists. In a split-second, he realized the armor was targeting the webshooters, obviously having identified them as the problem, but the armor fired two shackles before he could even speak.

Peter stumbled dizzily to his feet, looking a little uncoordinated.

Something metal snapped around his wrist. Before Peter could even glance down at it, it activated some kind of charge, and slammed his arm backwards into the metal wall behind him.

"Ey!" Peter yelped in annoyance. He twisted his head around to look at it when he felt a second manacle snap around his other wrist and magnetize. Peter's back slammed up against the wall, spread-eagling him. He let out a gasp of surprise.

"Are these things magnetized that is really awesome," he wheezed, struggling in vain against the metal's grip.

"Stop complimenting my tech while it's fighting you," Tony ordered, his voice coming through the faceplate.

Peter quickly looked up. The armor was walking towards him.

Straining with effort, he pulled both his legs up to his chest, using the magnetized cuffs as leverage to lift his body off the ground. He kicked out with both feet, nailing the armor in the chest.

Tony stumbled backward, and Peter's feet hit the floor again. He turned back to look at the cuff pinning him down.

He sprung up onto the wall, gripping it with his feet, and started to pull against the right shackle with all his strength.

Agonizingly slowly, trembling against the pull of the magnet all the way, Peter's wrist slowly began to pull away from the wall. Letting out a shout of exertion, he swung his arm over his body and into the other cuff.

The shackles smashed into each other, and the locking mechanisms snapped apart. With the magnetic pulls broken, they both clattered to the floor.

Peter slumped to the floor himself. He was starting to feel a little exhausted. Blowing breath out his cheeks, he straightened up, rubbing his sore wrist.

"Kid!"

Peter didn't have to look up; spider-sense reacted for him. His arm shot up and met a fist, catching it mid-swing. He jerked his head up, and his wide eyes met the cool glowing blue eyes of Iron Man.

For a moment they stayed locked in a grip, wrestling with the other's strength – one biological, one mechanical.

Inside the helmet, Tony's eyes were wide. His voice stuck in his throat. "I'm sorry, kid."

"Don't worry about it, Mister Stark," Peter said back breathlessly. "I do this all the time – gah!"

The armor had pushed forward, forcing Peter backwards a step, but it still wasn't powerful enough to shake his grip.

"You've got to hit the reactor _now_ , Pete. You might not get another shot," Tony said loudly. He wasn't exaggerating.

Peter's gaze went to the reactor in the suit's chest. He gritted his teeth, steeling himself. Still gripping the armor's fist in one hand, he punched the reactor, then again, then again. Nothing.

"Come on!" Tony urged.

Letting out a shout, Peter tightened his fist and punched the suit's chest with his full-strength.

A slim white crack spidered across the reactor's surface.

Peter's eyes lit up for a split-second – _I did it!_ – before he heard Tony shout in pain.

Instantly, his exhilaration dried up. "Oh my God, I'm sorry, Mister Stark, I –"

"Forget it, you're almost there." Tony spoke through gritted teeth. He knew that the bullet wound in his stomach had reopened; the suit's flashing warnings and his own gut feeling had made that pretty clear. But none of it mattered if the armor didn't get destroyed. "One more thwack, come on."

But it was too late. The person controlling the suit had taken advantage of Peter's split-second hesitation, and the chest repulser charged up within a second.

Spider-Man's lenses widened as he looked down at Iron Man's glowing blue chest.

The repulser fired.

Caught dead-on in the blast, Peter was flung back across the room like a rag doll.

At the same time, the flashing red display on the inside of the mask turned blue. "Hack Overridden. Sir, I am able to open the armor," JARVIS said.

"Do it!" Tony shouted. His eyes didn't move from where Peter had been flung, and his heart was pounding.

Immediately, the armor hissed and fell away from Tony in sections, each piece clattering heavily to the ground. He stumbled a few steps forward, jarred to his own feet again.

He reached for the earpiece in his ear. "JARVIS, reconfigure Mark 75, blow it to hell for me."

Freed from the Mirror Protocol, the armor obeyed, magnetizing together to form a complete suit again. It exploded from the inside, and metal went flying everywhere.

Tony turned away, raising an arm to shield his face. Disoriented, he shook his head and turned around.

"Kid?" he called our, still trying to get his bearings. "Peter. You alright?"

"He's fine," came King's voice.

Tony froze.

"Actually," King continued, "he's right where we need him."

King was holding a gun. The barrel was pressed against Peter's head, and the lenses on Peter's mask were very, very wide.

.

* * *

 _._

 _A/N: Dun, dun, duuuuuuunnn. . . ._

 _*evil little smile*_

 _Thank you as usual and as always for for being here and enjoying my story! Thanks so much to Shadow-wolf78, seireidoragon, cargumentluv, and Taeriel for your reviews, you know I always love 'em. *hugs*_


	20. Open-Casket, Closed Circuit

**20**

Fury and Hill automatically raised their guns.

"Put them down!" King snapped. He was gripping Peter by the arm, holding him across his chest as a human shield. "Put them down, or I shoot his little head." He pressed the gun harder against Peter's head.

Peter squeezed his eyes shut.

There was the slightest change in Fury's stance, a tensing in his shoulders. He didn't lower his gun, but King seemed to pick up on his hesitation immediately.

"You think the Casket needs him alive for his prints to work?" King said, his voice low and serious. "I'll drag his corpse over to it and scan them myself."

Peter's heart skipped. _Is that true?_ His heartbeat was pounding in his throat.

Tony's voice was nearly inaudible. "Fury." His wide eyes never moved from King's gun. " _Fury_ , for God's sake."

Slowly, Fury lowered his gun, and Hill copied him.

"Put them on the ground and kick them away," King ordered.

Tony gritted his teeth as they complied, pushing their guns out of reach. With no gun, no gadgets, and no suit, he was absolutely powerless. King had played this well.

King smiled darkly. "Good," he said. "Now, we're going to finish what we came here to do." He angled his head toward Peter. "Are you ready, Parker?"

Swallowing tightly, Peter looked over at Tony, who met his eyes and gave the slightest nod.

King sidestepped with him towards the Casket. With his free hand, he activated the Casket's display. The hub whirred to life, and the latches at the top lit up with their individual colors – two green, two red.

He shoved Peter forward a step. "Go on. Your right hand."

Peter pried off his suit's right glove, feeling his fingers beginning to tremble. He reached forward, hesitated, then pressed his thumb onto one of the red latches at the top.

The display on the touchscreen changed, and a little text box that read _Analyzing Print_ popped up.

Peter felt something prick his finger, and he winced in surprise more than pain. When he withdrew his hand, he saw a dark drop of blood had been left on the scanner. _Biological lock_ , he remembered. No wonder HEL hadn't been able to hack into the Casket.

The screen flashed green.

 _Print Confirmed_

 _Identity: Spider-Man_

The third latch clicked open, and a green light replaced the red. There was only one left to go.

Peter stepped back, feeling a little dizzy at what he had done.

King pulled him away. "Good boy." His voice raised. "Stark?" He gestured to the Casket with his head. "You're next."

"Yep." Tony didn't move yet. He was stiff-backed and tense, like he was ready to spring. Nodding up at King, he said, "But I'm not doing anything until you lower that gun."

"I don't think so, Stark." King comfortably pressed the gun a little harder against Peter's head. " _Move_."

"Chill, King Kong. There's no tricks this time, nothing –"

King pulled the gun away from Peter's head and fired.

The gunshot shattered the air behind Peter's ears. Tony visibly jolted at the noise, his mouth opening in shock

Peter let out a little gasp. He felt the heat directly behind his head, he could smell the gunpowder, but no pain followed.

The bullet had purposefully missed his head, but only by inches. A warning shot.

"We're on a timetable here, Stark," King said, returning the gun to Peter's head. "You were almost too late."

The barrel was hot. Nauseous, Peter closed his eyes.

"Okay. Okay," Tony said, raising his hands. "Okay." He walked toward the Casket. The sound of the gunshot had stripped all the boldness from his body language.

As he walked up to them, he met Peter's gaze out of the corner of his eye. "You alright?" he asked in a murmur.

Peter swallowed tightly and nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

"Kid," Tony said, his voice softer than usual. "Remember, I fixed that suit."

Peter's eyebrows furrowed. _What?_

"No bullshit, Stark," King said, prodding him forward.

Tony's hands raised again. "You're the boss." He turned towards the Casket.

 _I fixed that suit._ Peter's mind raced, desperately trying to figure out what Tony had meant. His heartbeat was pounding so loudly in his ears that it was hard to think straight. Tony hadn't _fixed_ this suit, it was a new –

 _The cloaking_. Finally, it clicked in Peter's mind, and his eyes widened.

"Would you like me to activate cloaking?" Karen asked softly.

Wordlessly, Peter gave a quick nod, and the cloaking activated instantly. Peter felt the fabric writhe over his skin, much faster than the Mark 19 had.

King looked sharply back at Peter; or at least, where Peter used to be. The cloaked suit had disguised him perfectly. His grip on Peter's arm slackened as he pulled away in surprise. "What the hell–?"

Peter ducked down to the ground.

A web shot upwards, seeming to come out of thin air. It attached itself to King's gun and yanked it out of his grip, and it clattered heavily to the ground.

Tony spun around, away from the Casket. He lunged forward, grabbing King from behind like a tackle. As the HEL agent cried out and fought back, Fury and Hill darted forward.

Peter jumped out of their way, invisible in the cloaked suit.

King grunted as he struggled against the hands gripping him. "We're not leaving empty-handed!" he growled. He looked up.

Through the flurry of bodies, he could just make out a blurry shape, shifting against the backdrop of the workshop. His eyes narrowed. _That damn kid!_ It was the suit. He had a cloaked suit.

King's eyes darted down to the floor. He could see where his gun had been dropped, the webbing still clinging to the muzzle. He lunged downwards for it, and he felt his hand close around the grip. Struggling against the flurry of arms and bodies, King raised his arm, and in a flash-bang of noise, he pulled the trigger.

Peter screamed out in pain.

Tony felt his heart stop. His head jerked up, eyes wide.

Peter had doubled over, one hand gripping his shoulder, blood pouring out around his fingers. The bullet had shattered the suit's cloaking panels. The fabric glitched around the shoulder area, the red coloring of the suit flickering in and out of sight. Even the mask was flickering crazily, making fizzy electrical sounds like lightbulbs popping.

"Gah!" Peter scrabbled at the glitching mask and yanked it off. His face was white.

"Jesus, kid," Tony swore, lunging forward.

Peter stumbled a few steps backward. "No it's fine it's fine it's just my shoulder, it's – it's – just –" he gasped for air. Shock had taken over him.

"I know, kid, I know, just, shh," Tony said, feeling numb with shock himself. He let Peter's weight collapse forward onto his chest and knelt down, helping him down to the floor.

Fury reacted quickly. He kicked King's gun from his hand and knocked the man's chin up with his knee. King's head jerked up with a muffled grunt, and he stumbled backwards.

Regaining his composure, he looked up and swung a punch at Fury's nose, hoping to break it.

Fury jerked away, narrowly missing the fist, and stepped forward with a kick aimed at King's kneecap. His foot hit the joint straight-on, and the HEL agent collapsed with a hoarse shout of pain.

His knees hit the floor, jarring his bruised body all the way up. Blood from his split lip dribbled down his chin as he heaved out a cough.

Before he could move, hands gripped his wrists, and his arms were twisted behind his back. Agent Hill secured his hands behind his back with some kind of magnetized shackle. His head jerked up. "Hey –!"

His eyes met the hollow end of a gun.

Fury stood in front of him. "Fury's Circuit," he muttered, partially to himself. "I guess I started you boys on this track. By definition, I've gotta be the one to finish you off."

King, panting, stared up the barrel Fury was pointing at him. For a moment he didn't say anything, looking between the barrel and Fury's face, weighing up his options.

Finally, he clenched his jaw and met Fury's eye.

"Are you gonna kill me then, Director?"

Fury didn't reply for a long moment, but then he shook his head to one side. "Not really my style," he said.

King imperceptibly relaxed as Fury's gun lowered.

"But you have hurt people I care about," Fury continued. "Hill?"

On cue, Hill flipped a taser-like weapon around in her hand and jammed it onto King's neck. King's mouth opened silently as his body convulsed with the electricity. After a few seconds he slumped to the ground, unconscious.

Fury lowered his gun and slid it back into the holster on his belt. "And now guess who's going to have to clean up all your mess?" he muttered.

Stiff with fear, Tony helped Peter lie flat on the floor. Blood was already forming a dark liquid shadow below him, which meant there was an exit wound.

"JARVIS, send a medical kit," he said quickly, his eyes riveted to the bullet wound.

"The power is still off, sir. I'm afraid I cannot access anything remotely."

Tony audibly swore. "Well, are the phone lines working?" he asked, a note of strained desperation coming into his voice.

"I've called SHIELD," Hill interrupted. "Medical's already on its way." She knelt beside Peter and inspected his shoulder. "Damn," she muttered under her breath, already reaching for something on her belt.

Peter gave a light gasp of pain. Tony glanced quickly at his face for the first time since his mask had come off, and his gaze locked there for a few horrible seconds.

With the mask off, Tony could see what the suit had done in detail. Dried blood traced a trail from Peter's mouth to his chin, and there were bright red bruises along his cheekbones and jaw. His eyes were shut, his eyebrows drawn tightly together in pain.

Tony visibly winced, closing his eyes and turning his head away from Peter's face. Nausea turned his stomach.

Hill looked up and read his body language in a glance. "Tony," she said firmly, like a gentle reprimand.

He pulled in a sharp breath and turned back. "Yeah. Yeah."

Hill pulled out a small pad of gauze from her belt. "Peter, we need to put pressure on this wound, okay?" she said as she unfolded it. She met his eyes. "This is going to hurt."

Peter nodded quickly, biting his lip.

She laid the gauze over the wound and pressed the heel of her palm onto it, shifting her position to press down on his shoulder.

"Gah –!" Peter squelched his yelp through gritted teeth, fighting against tears pricking his eyes.

Tony fought to keep his voice level. "Kid, you alright? Talk to me."

Peter swallowed so loudly he could hear it. "I'm just –" He paused to gulp in air. "Really hurts."

That was an understatement. Instead of blurring his thoughts into one hazy kaleidoscope of pain, Peter's brain had zeroed in on the bullet wound, and he could actually feel exactly where the bullet had torn through the muscle. His spider-sense was magnifying the pain by about a thousand.

Every one of Tony's responses died on his tongue at the sound of the raw pain in Peter's voice. "Just hang in there, okay, kid?" he said finally, his voice coming out as a tight mutter.

Peter nodded, silently biting his tongue inside his mouth.

"We have another hostile in the building. Floor 37," Fury was saying into his radio. "We have the other hostile detained. I need transport here."

"How close did it get to the heart?" Peter could hear Tony ask quietly.

Peter didn't hear Hill's response. His own heartbeat was sounding so loudly in his ears it was hard to think. He closed his eyes, trying to shut it out.

"Pete?" Tony's voice grew a little more intense. "You've got to stay with me here. Keep those baby browns open, okay?"

Staying awake wasn't the problem. The problem was Peter was _so_ awake that he was overloaded. He could _feel_ everything – his head, his lungs, his heart, his skin. He could even feel the pain from a paper cut on his finger that had healed a week ago. There was way too much to sort through.

But all of that was too much to explain, so Peter just pried his eyelids open. He couldn't really see all that well; everything looked so bright his eyes couldn't make sense of what he was looking at.

Footsteps sounded against the floor. "How is he?" Fury's voice came from above him.

Hill glanced up. "We have an entry and an exit. He's losing blood fast."

"Been there, done that." Fury knelt beside him, concern shining in his one eye. "Hurts like hell, right?"

"Yeah," Peter said, his voice cracking.

"Hang in there, kid." Fury looked up and nodded at the shattered window. "Help's arrived."

The whir of a Quinjet sounded in the window. Agents quickly swept into the room, unfolding a stretcher from the back of the Quinjet. Tony felt a tiny trickle of relief.

He looked back at Peter. "Hey. You're gonna be fine, alright?"

Peter tried to smile. "Yeah, I know."

Tony backed up as the agents moved in. A kind of numbness had taken over him, blanketing his thoughts.

Hill took charge, raising her voice to speak to the agents. "GSW to the left shoulder. We have an exit wound." They transferred Peter to a stretcher, and Hill moved with them as they headed back to the waiting Quinjet.

"JARVIS, we're killing the Mirror Protocol," Tony mumbled absently to his AI.

"Already noted, sir."

The agents rolled the stretcher over to the shattered window, shouting orders to the awaiting Quinjet. Tony's gaze followed them.

Fury came up to Tony's side. "He'll be alright," he said. "He's an enhanced with a healing factor that's off the charts."

"Yeah." Tony glanced distractedly down at his hands, absentmindedly sliding them against each other.

Fury watched him carefully. "Tony?"

Tony sharply looked up, and his gaze settled on the unconscious form of King. An entirely new expression had come into his eyes. "What about him?"

"He'll be taken into SHIELD custody," Fury said.

Tony's jaw clenched and unclenched. "And what about his pal?" His voice was a low mutter. "Found him yet?"

Fury studied the other man's face. "You mean the agent who was controlling your hacked suit."

Tony jerked his head up in a nod.

"HEL is SHIELD's responsibility," Fury answered quietly. He placed a hand on his shoulder, leaning down to try to catch his eye. " _My_ responsibility."

After a long time, Tony finally looked up. Guilt had replaced the anger in his eyes, and for a brief moment, he looked lost.

Fury's tone softened. "Focus on what you _can_ do," he said seriously. "You're not done yet, Tony."

Tony's gaze went to the Casket, and he wordlessly gave a quick nod. Heaving a disheveled sigh out his cheeks, he shook his head to clear it and walked over to the Casket.

It was still active. The three open latches glowed green. Tony stared at them for a moment, his gaze vacant.

Fury looked over at him. "And Tony?"

"Uh-huh?" Tony absently took a step back.

"This time, you're _destroying_ that thing," Fury said with emphasis.

Tony jerked his head up in a nod. "Yeah."

.

.

* * *

 _._

 _A/N: Thanks to cargumentluv, curry-llama, LoonyLovegood1981, angelicfrosty, carajiggirl, The Book Snitch (Hey, welcome to the story!) and Shadow-wolf78 for your reviews! And of course, thanks to my silent readers! I know you're out there somewhere. Hope you're enjoying. :)_

 _Um, so. . . huh. I guess the next chapter is going to be the last one? Wow. We're finally, finally, almost there. :D I'm so excited and weirdly nostalgic at the same time._


	21. Sunday Afternoon

**21**

 **19 HOURS LATER**

"Ah, Mister Parker."

At the sound of Tony's voice, Peter quickly looked up.

Tony stood in the doorway of the hospital room, both hands in his pockets, the picture of casual-cool. Despite the medical tape over the cuts on his face, he wore an easy grin.

Peter smiled back and spoke quickly into the phone he was holding to his ear. "Hey May, I'm gonna call you back, okay? See you soon. . . . Yeah, I know. I know. Bye." Ending the call, he turned back to Tony and stood up from the bed. "Hey!"

Tony strolled into the room, giving Peter a once-over. "Well," he said. "You seem to be doing well, against the doctor's orders." He nodded his head upwards. "How's that shoulder?"

Peter glanced down. His left arm was in a sling. "It's fine, uh – good, actually," he said. "They said I could go home tomorrow."

"Oh, of course." Tony glanced away. "As if it wasn't enough that you stole my thunder of taking a bullet, you've already recovered. All of the glory with none of the rehab. To be fair, that's the way I would do it."

Peter grinned.

"I will say one thing," Tony commented, raising an eyebrow. "You've sufficiently lowered the pride of the staff on this floor."

Peter looked up with a puzzled frown. "What?"

"Your increased healing. It's driving them nuts. It's great. You weren't even supposed to be up and walking til tomorrow."

Tony let out a sigh as he drummed his fingers against the plastic frame of the bed. "So it's all over, then," he said. "SHIELD's taking care of the hackers, Tower's being fixed, and the Mirror Protocol has been officially, gloriously scrapped." He wandered over to the window on one side of the room and paused at the window for a moment. "Nice view, huh?" he said, distracted. "SHIELD's always got the best."

Peter didn't say anything. He was watching Tony's back, feeling the man was ready to speak. "Mister Stark –"

"Yeah, uh, just –" Tony halfheartedly held up one hand. He turned around, rubbing his temples. "I'm trying to get to my point here. Listen. The suit – the armor – When we were in the Tower –" He blew a short frustrated breath through his cheeks, cutting himself off. "Okay, I'm gonna start over.

"I'm sorry, kid," he said simply. "For – all that. The hacked armor, the whole deal." Tony pursed his lips and glanced away. "Shouldn't have happened."

Peter leaned against the bed. "Yeah, I know."

"I'm asking here –" Tony finally looked up at him and studied his face. "You alright?"

When Peter looked up at him, he continued. "I don't just mean _yes, I can move my elbow even though I broke it yesterday._ I'm talking headspace. You okay?"

"I'm really okay, Mister Stark. I'm fine."

Tony held his gaze for a moment. His dark eyes were soft at the edges, and Peter suddenly realized – the armor being hacked had affected Tony way more than it had him. "Okay. Good," he said softly.

Pulling in a sharp breath, he pulled a pair of sunglasses out from his breast pocket and slipped them on. "Then this is where we part ways, I think." He held out a hand to shake. "Once again, Mister Parker."

"Yeah." Peter shook.

"And hey, next time you get a call from me?" Tony raised an eyebrow. "Our code word is Mirror Protocol, deal?"

Peter grinned. "Deal," he said. He let go of Tony's hand. "See you around."

Tony gave him a quick flash of his usual smirk. "Don't count on it." He headed for the door and called over his shoulder. "Bye, kid!"

* * *

"They locked me out, Tony. They locked me out of the Tower and then they hacked into my phone. What could I have done?"

Tony hopped over a line of construction tape. "Is that rhetorical?" he asked. "Uh, let me think. You could have told me in person that my Tower was under attack?"

Happy lifted the tape over his head and ducked under it. "Hey, want to know something?" he asked, striding quickly to catch up. " _I tried_. Three in the morning and I was driving like a crazy person back to some godforsaken SHIELD hospital to tell you what happened, and what do I find? I find out you've already taken off to go to the very place I was trying to warn you about."

"Hap. I'm not that upset."

Happy continued anyway. "I broke the speed limit, Tony. I've only broken the speed limit twice in my life, and both times have been for you."

Tony chuckled as he walked around a pile of broken glass that had been swept into a pile.

Avengers Tower was going through one final renovation. Workers milled around, cleaning up the broken glass and the damages the hacked Iron Man suit had done. A large plastic tarp had been temporarily sealed over the broken window, and scaffolding had been built up to the ceiling where the suit had lasered out a circle.

Happy consulted the clipboard in his hand. "Well, according to the report, the damage was minimal – a few busted locks, some damage to the walls, the destroyed ceiling, and the window."

"Yeah, probably not my best move," Tony admitted.

Happy looked up quickly. "That was _you_?"

"That was what?" Tony deflected, just as quickly. He grinned and turned towards the tarp that had been affixed over the window. His eyes narrowed at it, calculating.

"No," Happy said, noticing the expression on Tony's face.

"I didn't say a _word_ ," Tony said, raising his hands.

"You've got that look on your face. I know that look, and you need to stop thinking whatever you were thinking."

"You know what I was thinking? Okay, what was I thinking?"

"I don't know, holograms–" Happy waved one hand, "– embedded into the windows or something."

"It's actually not a bad idea," Tony started, but Happy cut him off.

"No more renovations. We've been trying to move to the Compound for a week. A week, Tony. And you still haven't moved out all your workshop stuff out of here."

"Okay, you've got some fair points, but –"

"We're not changing the window, end of story, okay?" Happy said. "We've already ordered the new glass."

Out of the corner of his eye, Tony caught sight of Fury, leaning against the far wall, half-hidden by shadows. "You know what?" he said, distracted. "You're right. Sounds good. Hap, I'm gonna leave this in your capable hands. I've gotta go take care of a. . . thing."

He patted Happy's back and headed towards Fury.

As he strode towards him, Tony jerked his head up in a nod as greeting. "You always use the back door?"

"I prefer a dramatic entrance," Fury replied, only half-joking.

Tony grinned and glanced away. "How's the search going? Find the rest of your rebellious kids yet?"

"We're still rounding up the last of them," Fury sighed, crossing his arms. "HEL's scattered themselves pretty well. And they've trained themselves pretty damn well, too. Still haven't gotten the name of their employer out of any of them yet." He paused. "But we're doing our best to trim up the loose threads."

"Yuh-huh. So what're you doing here?"

"You _know_ what I'm doing here," Fury said, raising his eyebrows. "You've been putting something off, Tony."

"And you've been snooping," Tony said. "Apparently. Shall we?" Sliding his hands into his pockets, he started for a door marked with a Post-It that read, in rapidly scribbled Sharpie, PRIVATE DO NOT ENTER.

Fury raised an eyebrow at the handwritten note. "Your own security detail?"

"Yeah, poke fun. It was a little last minute. Look, I had to keep the orange hats from busting in here and setting something off." Tony swept the door open, ripping the Post-It off as he went inside.

"There she is," he said, crumpling the Post-It in his hand.

The Casket sat in the darkened room. It had been powered off, and it sat in the dark.

"Still whole," Fury said with emphasis. "You haven't wiped the program yet."

Tony walked backwards to face Fury. "Do you actually _send_ agents in here to scan it, or do you just know everything instinctively?"

"I just know everything," Fury replied, completely deadpan. "At least, most of the time." He walked forward a pace. "What I _don't_ know is why you haven't scrapped this thing yet."

A long silence hung in the air. A corner of Tony's mouth twitched, like he was debating what to say. "Obviously King was a lunatic, but –" Hands in his pockets, he shrugged his shoulders. "Wasn't a bad plan." He gave Fury a quick, wry grin and slowly circled around the Casket. "Wasn't the _worst_ plan. We could bring in Cap. The program knows how to find him and how to bring him in, unscathed, in one piece. We'd have Rogers and Barnes in one spot. Who knows who else would follow them? Maybe we bring in Wilson – even Wanda. All of them are technically vigilantes."

"Tony."

Fury's voice, with a note of sadness, brought Tony to an abrupt halt. Biting his tongue, Tony shook his head and didn't look up. "We'd know _where_ in the world they are," he continued, his voice quiet with conviction. "We'd know they'd be _safe_. The Avengers would be contained."

"No, Tony," Fury corrected, walking forward, "the Avengers would be caged."

Tony looked away.

The Director leaned forward over the darkened hub, resting his fingers against the glass touchscreen. "And you and I both know that's the last thing you want to do."

There was a silence. Still not meeting his eyes, Tony nodded once. "You're usually right, Nick."

"Damn right I am," Fury said, but his voice was gentle. "Destroy it, Tony." He leaned away. "You know it's what you have to do."

Without giving the other man time to respond, he started walking towards the door.

Tony twisted around as Fury walked away. "What? Hey. Where are you going? Not sticking around to watch the fireworks?"

Fury paused in the doorway. "I trust you to do the right thing, Tony," he said. "You've have enough of a wake-up call."

The edge of Tony's mouth quirked upwards in a humorless smile.

"It takes up too much space anyway!" Fury added over his shoulder as he closed the door after him.

Left in silence, Tony turned back to the Casket. He chuffed out a short breath and shook his head slightly, but his eyes didn't move from the machine.

 _Okay_.

"JARVIS?" He stood still, hands behind his back, looking at the hub. "Terminate Casket program."

"With pleasure, sir."

Tony waited in front of it, absentmindedly snapping his fingers against his palms to fill the silence.

"Termination complete," JARVIS announced after a moment. "The Casket program is no more."

"Thank you muchly, JARVIS," Tony said. He continued to stare at the empty shell of the Casket.

Nothing had changed from the outside. Nothing. There hadn't even been the slightest electronic fizzle.

"Well, that was anticlimactic," he muttered.

He tilted his head and closed one eye, scrutinizing it carefully. The Casket was still too. . . _there_.

He slid back the sleeve of his right hand and double-tapped the face of his watch. Immediately, the watch made a whirring noise and reconfigured itself into a partial Iron Man gauntlet, rapidly encapsulating his wrist. A light blue circle of light settled into the palm of his hand.

He raised the gauntlet and fired a blast at the Casket.

The hub's glass touchscreen shattered and spat sparks.

Tony kept firing blasts, over and over again, until the Casket began to break apart. The metal started to melt into itself.

After a few moments, Tony lowered his arm, panting slightly. Drawing himself up to his full height, he reviewed his work.

 _Now_ the Casket was unrecognizable.

Tony nodded to himself. "Better," he said aloud.

Popping the gauntlet off his wrist, he turned to leave the room.

"JARVIS?" he called up to the ceiling. "We have a mess in the Workshop Office. Deal with it."

.

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 _._

 _A/N: Well, here we are, folks! The end. *questions what I'm going to do with my life now*_

 _A million thanks to everybody who read, enjoyed, followed, favorited, and especially, who reviewed this story. I had such a good time writing this and posting it, and it's because you guys were such an awesome audience. :D I distinctly remember the Saturday morning after I posted the very first chapter, because the rush of e-mails I got telling me how many people followed this story had me grinning like a happy idiot all day. :D So thanks for being here, folks! I really appreciate you all._

 _And for your reviews, thank you to: EmilyF.6, cargumentluv, Shadow-wolf78, curry-llama, and NovakCat!_

 _I am not planning to write a sequel, but I hope to catch you later on some other story!_


	22. Coming Soon: A Sequel?

_A/N: Whassup, team! I hope your summers have been GREAT so far!_

 _So. . . do you remember, like, five months ago when I said I wasn't going to write a sequel to this story?_

 _. . . . ._

 _Yeeeaaaah._

 _As it turns out, I am._

 _I swear, I was not planning on this at_ _all_ _. I wasn't trying to be all secretive and mysterious and pull a sneaky on ya – I just genuinely wasn't planning on writing any more to this storyline. I was so satisfied where_ NWTS _had ended that I didn't think the story needed to go anywhere else. However, as time went on (and in the aftermath of_ Endgame _), some new ideas started to formulate, and then some_ _ **really awesome**_ _new ideas started to formulate, and basically, I just couldn't contain them any more. I want to share the next stage of this story with you all. And my dudes, I. Am. PUMPED! I've been working tirelessly on the new story since April/May, and I have to say, I absolutely adore it. I really, really do, and I hope you guys will too._

 _So, without any further ado, ladies and gentlemen of the Internet, I present to you my newest story –_ You're An Avenger Now _, a sequel to_ Nothing Without This Suit _!_

 _(And what better time to post than on Peter Parker's canonical birthday, August 10th?)_

 _Now, in order to comply with FanFiction guidelines (because you're not supposed to post chapters comprised purely of author's notes) and also just because I flat-out want to, I'm going to include an excerpt from the first chapter here. Please enjoy it! Let me know what you think! And I'll begin posting the actual story very soon! Hope to see you guys there! :)_

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"THE FREEZER"

SECURE SHIELD HOLDING FACILITY

Location: [Redacted]

ONE WEEK AFTER TONY'S SNAP

Helicopter blades thumped in the air, slicing through the eerie silence of night. Miles of black, barren land whizzed beneath the aircraft as it flew for its destination.

Inside, the helicopter was dark and relatively quiet, the noise of the blades muffled by its thick bulletproof shell.

Nick Fury sat in the back, studying a holographic image on a tablet in his lap. Maria Hill sat across from him. She, too, held a tablet, quickly skimming through details about the Freezer.

She spoke first. "Freezer's been having a multitude of problems since the Snap – system failures, computer errors, complete power grid shutdowns –" She shook her head, pursing her lips.

"One disaster follows another." With a weary sigh, Fury set his tablet down and ran a hand over his eyes. "Five years is a hell of a long time to have been away, Miz Hill."

She looked up and flashed him a wry smile. "Welcome back to Earth, Director."

With SHIELD running point on a large percentage of the problems popping up all over the globe in the wake of Banner's restorative Snap, there hadn't been much good news along the way. Even working alongside multiple national governments, SHIELD's workload ahead was massive. Families had been separated. Tourists were misplaced. The sheer number of missing persons reports was overwhelming.

At the top of SHIELD's priority list right now, however, was something else altogether – a check on the Freezer, a housing facility for some of the most dangerous cons in SHIELD custody.

The pilot spoke quietly into his headset. "Freezer, this is Eagle 1. We are approaching, you may show yourself."

Almost immediately, lights snapped on below them. The earth below them was thrown into sharp, artificial light, exposing a wide white building that had been invisible a moment ago. More slowly, a landing pad opened up below them, previously hidden by mirrored panels. Little white lights blinked along its perimeter.

"Approaching landing zone," the pilot called back to Hill and Fury.

Fury straightened in his seat and re-tightened his seatbelt, and Hill did the same, setting her tablet down on the seat next to her.

"You are clear, Eagle 1."

"Descending."

The helicopter glinted in the white light as it swerved downwards, settling lightly onto the landing pad.

Nick Fury stepped out of the helicopter, the blades whipping up the tails of his coat. He and Hill strode for the Freezer itself – a low, heavy building, solidly built, starkly alit with stadium LEDs. A solid white brick from the inside out.

An agent stood waiting for them just outside the building.

"Give me good news," Fury shouted as a greeting as they approached the agent.

The man standing in front of him looked grim. "Sorry, Director."

Fury hadn't been expecting much else. "Alright then, how bad is it?"

"Empty House, sir," the agent replied.

Hill's expression didn't change, but Fury heaved out a sigh, his breath leaving a trailing cloud in the cold air. "Damn," he muttered under his breath.

HEL had escaped.


End file.
